


Vintage Misery

by theLiterator



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mommy Issues, Multi, Other, Relationship(s), sturm und drang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of showing Batman exactly how a city should be protected, Red Hood and Nightwing find themselves the target of a hunter determined to make them relive their years as Robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dick hadn’t been expecting the fight to go badly: who ever did, really? But when his own line, instead of retracting back into the launcher like it was supposed to, suddenly whipped around his chest tightly enough to bruise, he had to reassess his opponents’ relative skill.

He hit the graveled rooftop head first and lay, stunned, for a few moments, forgetting where he was and why he was there. Then, a boot connected with his face and he yelped, tasting blood and shutting his eyes against the painPainPAIN that came on from the combination.

His head lolled to the other side, and he saw boots approaching. He tried to figure out who they belonged to, but it was like his head belonged to someone else, and his eyes could only focus, inanely, on the rather elaborate lacings of said boots. Dick closed his eyes when they came into kicking distance, but the blow never came. Instead, there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh and an angry groan of pain directly above him.

Then, gunfire. It wasn't an uncommon sound in this part of the city, but usually it didn't report so loud, so close, and he forced himself to open his eyes again, to glance at his body; but he hadn't been shot.

Three more gunshots, and Dick had a burgeoning suspicion that was confirmed after a few more moments when a familiar voice, gravel-rough and angry-teasing, said: "Alright Dickiebird, you tell me where it hurts."

Dick just groaned. He'd meant to say "head" or "neck" or "Fuck off and die, Jason" (well, really, not the latter,) but groaning was pretty apt as well, he thought.

"Aw, shit," Jason said. Red Hood said, (Just because _he_ forgot all courtesy on the streets didn't mean Dick would.) kneeling down just in Dick's line of sight. He stubbornly forced his head to loll in the other direction, but that hurt like hell. He bit his lip to keep from groaning again.

Gloved hands wrapped around his, the materials squeaking slightly where they rubbed, and Red Hood said, softly and with just enough worry lacing the words that Dick knew he was hallucinating, "Squeeze my fingers, Nightwing." Dick squeezed, and he was really fuzzy, but the soft, blown out breath might have smacked of relief from anyone else.

"Well, now, Dick, I've always wanted to do this," Jason said, and then he was being moved and his head was killing him, bright lights against the backdrop of the city, his neck aching and sore, and the rest of him all but numb. "Arms around my neck, Nightwing. I'm going to teach you to fly," Jason said, and then the steel cable was being cut and Dick could breathe again, and then he felt the air against his face like he was falling but that, that was familiar.

He came to in a crashpad somewhere in the worst parts of Gotham. He was on a thin, ancient mattress and wrapped up in a dozen blankets of varying states of repair without sheets. His head was killing him, he had no idea where he was, and he really, really wanted his own bed.

He tried to move, but that just made his head worse, so he settled in and drifted off again, wrapped in blankets and hoping it was safe to sleep because it wasn't looking like he was up for anything more, for now.

Hands pressing his face and the back of his head woke him again, and then Jason's face swam up through his panic. "Shh, you're gonna live. C'mon, the neighbors'll get nosy if you keep yelling like a cat in heat, c'mon, shh."

"Jay?" Dick asked, because if that part hadn't been a hallucination, then the guys who'd been on that rooftop were all probably dead and he was having a really hard time feeling bad about that. He'd have been the dead one if Jason hadn't been close enough to swing in, guns blazing. He tried to figure out why Jason would've been that close, but then dismissed it. He'd probably been edging on the Red Hood's nightly patrols; he couldn't really remember where he'd been, and they did have a couple of spots where their territory brushed up.

"Good," Jason said. "Not completely brain-dead then. I was afraid I was gonna have to dump you naked near an ER, playbook be damned."

The irony of Jason being unwilling to break the rules was not lost on Dick, and he offered Jason a smile. It came out a little lopsided because half his face felt swollen.

Jason smiled back, but it was dark and toothless, grim like Bruce's.

"Happened?" Dick asked, unwilling to dwell on that comparison. Hey, his wits were pretty scrambled, excuse him for being stupid.

"Well, you see, little Dickiebird, there's these criminals in the world known as masked vigilantes, and they fight worse criminals known as the scum of the earth. And sometimes, masked vigilantes weave when they're meant to bob, and they get plucked out of the sky by their own grappling hooks."

Dick winced in sudden, vivid memory. He brought a hand to his chest where there were some decidedly tender spots.

"Yeah. I've got morphine, but you were pretty out of it, so I couldn't risk it. Anyway, on those occasions, usually other masked vigilantes within earshot will step in and take out the scum before the sweet little birdies get killed outright. You’re welcome by the way,"

His conclusion was so violent, so aggressive, that Dick blinked against the abrupt vehemence.

"Yeah. Thanks. Good story. Get a happy-ever-after?" Dick asked, slurring a little and reaching blindly, hampered by the layers of blankets, for Jason's hand. It was icy cold, so Dick drew it back under the covers to warm up. Jason had saved his life; he deserved warm hands at least.

(That thought was a little bit out there, but he was concussed, probably, so.)

"Well, then the heroic masked vigilante scooped up the hurt birdie and flew away to his favorite nest?" Jason said, all defiance drained from his voice. Instead, he was staring at the place where his arm disappeared under the covers. Dick tugged on it experimentally. Yup, still attached to Jason. He looked back up at Jason quizzically.

"You been sleeping?" he asked, trying to keep his words clear. Then, after another moments' thought, "How long?"

"I've been patrolling. Someone decided to try and claim you were dead. Luckily, I've got practice playing Nightwing or half the city would be rioting. The other half would be quietly nursing wounds from a Batman-shaped instrument of vengeance. Honestly, your injuries are really inconvenient."

Dick peered around the room. The mattress and a rickety table and folding chair were the only things in evidence as furniture, and he frowned at Jason, tugging on his arm again. "How long?"

"Four days? You keep waking up for soup and stuff, do you remember that much?"

Rather than admit that he didn't, Dick tugged harder. Jason wasn't expecting it, because he toppled onto the mattress, twisting his body at the last second to keep from landing on Dick, which was awful polite of him, really. Almost out of character, in fact. Dick took advantage of the shocked, betrayed look on his face and the hand still clasped in his to wrestle him under the covers. He was ridiculously cold, probably from patrolling for two for four days, out in the sleety, nasty October weather, and his shoulder was much more supportive of Dick's injured head than the flat, thin pillow on the bed had been. He sighed muzzily as aching muscles in his neck untwisted, reasserted his grip on Jason's hand when it tried to slip away, and mumbled. "Sleep now, kay? Patrol’s over."

***

Jason lay on his bed with a Dick Grayson shaped blanket, trapped by indecision. He was pretty sure Dick had no idea who he was right now, because nothing else explained the overt trust he was showing. He'd tried throughout the last few days to get Dick bundled up for a trip to a clinic he knew would at least run scans for brain damage, but Dick had, typically, resisted violently. Since he wasn't going to hurt a guy who was already down, he'd eventually relented and had simply taken his frustration out on the assholes brave enough to test Nightwing's "disappearance". He knew patrolling as his brother wasn't going to appease Batman for long, because already there were rumblings of Batman's quest to find where Nightwing had holed up, this time, but still, hopefully long enough that Dick would be able to testify that Jason hadn't been the one to do the injuries.

(Assholes. Really, 'Red Hood Kills Nightwing!' was a fucking _tasteless_ headline.)

Dick, even injured and barely coherent, was a restless sleeper, shifting around and snuggling deeper against Jason and kicking at his shins, which wasn't fair at all because Jason had been perfectly fine in the far corner with the last of his blankets and a couch pillow he'd borrowed from Joe and Rick across the hall. (The building was his outright. He'd bought the place in his takeover, and hadn't been able to part with it after, since he knew no one who bought it off of him would let the tenants live there any longer. Fucking real estate moguls, think they know what's best for a city.)

He'd been working on getting the heat up and running, but now that he was keeping Red Hood's and Nightwing's territories relatively safe, he hadn't had time. Everyone in the place had banded together, though, once Joe had told them about his "dying lover", and had been bringing him supplies and assuring him they were fine until his boy was back on his feet. As much as he was aware that Dick was as far from his boy as they got, he hadn't had a better explanation for Dick's presence in his apartment, or his own absence from basic landlord duties, so he'd gone with it. Dick snuffled and shifted some more, and unwillingly, Jason brought his free hand up to check the injury again. The swelling had gone down, a lot, and he thought maybe he'd be able to get Dick to consent to a clinic visit when he woke up again.

Meantime, Jason had things he had to do. He tugged his captive hand, only to have Dick's grip on it go deathly tight for a moment. Huh, he thought. Well, the mattress was a lot warmer than his nest in the corner, and Dick was being awfully insistent (a trait the Robin part of Jason remembered all too well,) so he thought he might as well rest for a while. These last four days had sucked royally.

When he drifted awake again, Dick was sleeping soundly on his shoulder, drooling ridiculously, which was kind of gross and kind of nice because he was pretty sure he was one of the few people on earth who knew that Nightwing drooled while he slept, and he was definitely going to be using that as blackmail material just as soon as Nightwing was back on his feet. The night was just starting, the light from the windows orangey-gray from streetlights and fog, and he knew he had to get started on patrol or there'd be murder tonight. He managed, this time, to extricate his hand and then his body from Dick's death-grip to only soft, sleepy, wordless complaints, and he took an extra second to check the head-wound again. The swelling was barely noticeable under his soft, dark hair, and Dick'd be out of his hair, and his bed, very soon.

Reluctantly, Jason climbed out of the bed and went to put on his Nightwing duds. They weren’t as comfortable as the clothes he wore as the Red Hood, but he was dealing with it because the city was his city too, whether any of the Bat-clan wanted to acknowledge that or not. That thought reawakened the slow, constant burn of anger he usually felt around his once-family, so he was rather louder and more abrupt in getting dressed than he normally would be. He glanced at the form huddled on the bed one last time before he disappeared into the night.

He'd barely stopped his first mugging of the night, kind of enjoying the tricky little underhand throw needed to make Dick's wing-dings curve properly, when something sent chills down his spine. He dropped the mugger without bothering to tie him, letting him flee into the night, and turned to face Batman.

Jason forced himself to grin smugly, to lie with every ounce of energy his body possessed about exactly how cold his gut went at the sight of his fellow vigilante. This might just be a friendly chat, one mask to another. 

Except, of course, that it was the wrong face under Nightwing's mask, and Batman, of all the people in all the world, would know that for certain. Probably he'd already made the jump. Jason absolutely didn't curse under his breath, and he kept that smug grin up and ready to field anything Batman threw at him.

"Nightwing." Batman said by way of greeting, the tiniest quirk to his lips showing that he did, in fact, know the title for the lie it was.

"Batman," Jason replied, feeling cold all over and hearing it in the slightest waver of his voice.

"Where is he?" Batman said, and Jason wanted to say a lot of things in that moment, a lot of different insults and death threats and hatred colliding in his forebrain so that the only thing that came out was a shrill, petulant, "I wouldn't hurt him! I didn't... I wouldn't."

He wasn’t able to recover the smug grin again, stuck instead with what he hoped wasn't an expression of childish guilt and hope and fear all wrapped up in... shame. So Batman read the news. How was anyone supposed to know the headlines lied?

"But he was hurt?" Batman prodded, and the patience wasn't exactly typical, but it made all the thoughts colliding in on each other sort out for a long enough moment that Jason admitted, grudgingly, regretfully, "Yes. He wouldn't let me... He's a terrible convalescent."

Batman nodded, because of course he knew, knew way better than Jason did, what Dick Grayson was like when he was injured or sick.

"Where is he?" Batman asked again.

"He's fine! Okay? He's fine and I have him and I don- _we_ don't need you fucking around and getting someone _killed_ okay?" Jason snapped out, and then, and only then, did he remember the cables and grapplers that were part and parcel of any of his would-be family's arsenal. Rather than stand there in front of Batman and everyone and lose his cool like he was freaking twelve, he launched a cable at the nearest building and flew away.

Batman didn't make any more appearances that night, and Jason was emotionally wrung out from the brief encounter so that he cut his patrol short and climbed back into his apartment, already halfway out of Nightwing's costume by the time he realized that Dick wasn’t in the bundle of blankets on the mattress, and that Joe was in the apartment, back to him. Dick's eyes still weren't focused, and his face still looked terrible, but he made a face like he was trying not to laugh at Jason who very quickly and quietly stripped the rest of the costume off and dumped it in a heap on the bed, kicking some blankets over it. Joe turned around when Dick started laughing outright at that, and Jason did not turn red like a schoolboy caught out of the locker room without his clothes, but it was a near thing.

"Dick!" he snapped, and Dick just giggled harder.

When he joined them at the table, he had to count the chairs in his head, because there were definitely two more than there had been this evening when he’d left, but Joe had hot soup and biscuits on the table, so he decided to worry about it later. When his stomach wasn't quite so empty and he wasn’t still so cold from the wet.

"Does he normally use windows in lieu of proper doors, Dick?" Joe asked sweetly, which just made Dick burst into further laughter, clutching his head, which pissed Jason off.

"You know what? I'm not actually in the mood to play happy families. I'm getting the hell out of here," he snarled at both of them, storming out of the room in his a-shirt and levis and no socks and no shoes, realizing what he was wearing only once he set foot outside of the building and a car pulled up to him, passenger window rolling down enough for a voice to filter out: "How much for an hour?" 

Jason snarled and screamed imprecations, reaching for his guns or the wing-dings or something, but finding nothing to hand, and he didn't usually care about normal, bread-and-butter men like this, but his night had sucked royally.

It got worse when a gloved hand rested on his shoulder and the car sped away before Batman could even glare threateningly.

Jason startled like a baby bird, and he stared up at Batman, unmasked and barefoot and feeling like an idiot for all sorts of interrelated, conflicting reasons, and he gives, okay? Next time, the bad guys could _have_ Dick, because this shit is so not worth dealing with. He dropped to his ass on the filthy, wet asphalt and buried his face in his hands.

Batman slowly eased down beside him, and his shoulder was warm, and his cape may or may not have draped reassuringly against Jason's back the way it always did... before. Batman's gloved arm came up to his shoulder again, squeezing lightly and making something small and warm and twisting wake up in Jason’s stomach and demand to be noticed.

Of course, Batman had to ruin it. "Has he disappeared on you?"

Jason jerked away from the touch, losing his balance long enough that he wobbled uncertainly, and once he regained it, he scowled up at Batman. "Fuck. You. Not all of my problems revolve around _him_ , okay?" _Only the ones that don't revolve around_ you, he thought, which was really annoying. Even his own brain was turning against him.

"He's making friends with my neighbor," Jason finally admitted. It sounded like a ridiculously stupid reason to be outside at three in the morning in October, even to his own ears, so he huffed a little and rubbed his temples.

Batman replied, "I never thought you killed him."

Jason gawped at him. He'd never really figured gawping was an actual, legitimate facial expression, but he knew if someone took a picture of him right there, he'd instantly identify it as gawping.

The gloved hand on his shoulder squeezed again.

Jason recovered what remained of his wits, and said, "Well. There's, there's soup? Also Dick, which is what you're here for?"

"And it's raining," Batman agreed, standing up and offering Jason a hand.

Jason, resigned as he'd become to this being his Actual. Motherfucking. Week. accepted the hand up and even let Batman put his hand back on his shoulder as he showed the way up all six flights of stairs to his crummy apartment. 

About half-a-second before he opened his door, he thought, "Holy shit, I can't let him see my apartment!" because as dichotomous as Bruce Wayne, adoptive father, and Batman, disappointed mentor, were in Jason's head, they were, technically, the same man, and he had a strong feeling neither of them would appreciate his current living arrangements.

Jason used to pride himself on his brilliant tactics, forethought, and strategy. This week he had Dick Grayson sleeping into his bed and Batman in his doorway.

But, in the big scheme of things, while crime paid, stopping crime really, really did not, and this was what he had. He could only hope nobody would comment on it.

Dick, now alone, burst into laughter again, clutching his sides and toppling out of his chair. The thud of him hitting hardwood was followed by a groan of pain, and Jason sprinted to him in no time at all, tugging the shirt he’d put on (Jason’s shirt) up and out of the way so he could probe at the welts where the cable had wrapped around him. There were three of them, and they were purple-blue and swollen, but as he’d proven every time he’d run his fingers over them anxiously, nothing was broken.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jason said, moving his assessment back to Dick’s head where he made sure once again that the swelling around his eye still wasn’t hiding a broken orbital bone and the swelling on the back of his head was still mostly subsided.

Dick was giving him a focused, intense stare that made him back off abruptly and look at his kitchen, because that, at least, he could deal with. He started pulling dishes out of the drying rack and slamming them into the cupboards.

“Where’s Joe?” Jason asked.

“He left right after you did,” Dick said, and Jason could hear him climbing back into the chair. “Said to make sure you ate.”

Jason finished with his few dishes and set one of his mismatched clean bowls in the empty spot where Joe had been (his own place was already set). Batman finally got out of his doorway, so Jason took the two steps over to shut and lock it, and then flipped up the little security panel to flip on all his _other_ safeguards too.

“So,” Jason said. “You’re here, might as well make yourself at home.”

Batman immediately removed his cowl, and Jason felt that same something from earlier twisting in his gut. Why the hell would Batman trust Jason’s security, of all things? That was just.

“Bruce,” Dick said, clutching the blankets a little tighter around his shoulders.

“I’ve been worried sick about you, Dick,” Bruce replied, moving to inspect the damage to Dick’s face. His hands must not have been as gentle as Jason’s, because he flinched back and hissed in pain as soon as the gloved fingers brushed his skin.

“I’m fine, as you can see. I’m pretty sure it would have been a lot more obvious if I weren’t fine.”

“As obvious, as, say, Jason taking over as Nightwing?”

Dick shrugged. “Look, I would have called if I’d—“

“Been dead? Been unconscious and kidnapped by a villain who’d unmasked you and you had nowhere to turn?”

“I didn’t unmask—“

“Not you!” they snapped simultaneously, both turning icy glares on him. Jason crossed his arms over his chest, which reminded him of how damp his clothes were. As if on cue, he shivered.

“Why is it so cold in here?” Bruce asked, still glaring.

“Landlord’s a useless cunt who can’t be assed to fix the heat? He said he’s too busy, but you know how landlords are,” Jason said, shrugging.

Bruce grunted and turned back to Dick, forgetting, yet again, about Jason. Jason wanted to stamp his feet and shout, but he wasn’t, in fact, twelve, so he didn’t. Instead he took his seat at the table again and started spooning soup into his bowl. It had gone cold, but he was hungry and he really, really needed something with which to occupy himself.

“I’ll have to have a talk with him,” Bruce said, and it was a Batman kind of promise; more threat than anything else.

Jason shrugged. “Whatever. I can manage it myself, really. Just been a little busy lately, what with half the city convinced Boy Wonder over there is dead.”

“Then you really have been patrolling as me?” Dick asked, adjusting the blankets and not looking up from his own soup.

Bruce finally sat down. He didn’t dish any soup into his bowl.

“Said I was, didn’t I?” Jason mumbled.

“I don’t know, I’ve been really out of it,” Dick admitted.

“I tried to make you go to a hospital. Bet you don’t remember _that_ , either? Convenient. Well, Daddy’s here, you can go home now, and get out of my life and back where you belong.”

“No.”

Jason glared at Dick. “What do you mean, _no_? This is my apartment. You’re only here because you _bit me_ when I tried to kick you out before. You going to bite me again?”

“I’m not going home with Bruce,” Dick said. “I’ll go crash on someone’s couch if I have to; or you can take me home, but I’m not—“

“You’re being ridiculous,” Bruce and Jason said, simultaneously. Jason continued, ignoring the weird stereo, “You can’t be alone yet! You’re still all… float-y and you fell out of the chair when you laughed!”

“You don’t have a couch,” Bruce said, peering around the apartment, and there it was, the censure.

Jason took an enormous bite of his soup.

“It’s not like he’s really living here, Bruce,” Dick said, unexpected support from that quarter, and also, _what_? “Tell me the safe houses you’d be willing to let _him_ recover in are much nicer, and I’ll let you criticize.”

“I’d let him recover at the Mansion, if he needed it,” Bruce said tightly, now angry because Jason had brought his son someplace less than primary to recover. No way to win this one, huh, Batdad? Jason thought with seething resignation.

“Whatever, I know you think he’s no better than… than…” The stricken look on Dick’s face said that, suddenly, he couldn’t think of a single criminal in the entire world that wasn’t called ‘The Joker’.

Bruce’s sigh seemed to indicate he too saw the problem. The silence stretched around them.

“I’d let you recover at the Mansion, Jason,” Bruce said, looking him in the eye, and damn whatever his gut was trying to tell him, it was all too little, too late. He’d storm out again, except he was still soaked and in regular clothes, and this part of town wasn’t exactly hospitable, which had been the reason he liked it.

“Look,” Jason said. “As nice as this has been, I think you should both just go. Dick, spend a few nights with Daddy here, and Bruce, try to balance those overprotective instincts with your bullheaded stubbornness long enough that you two don’t come to blows, and just.

“Just forget you ever saw me, okay? I’m gonna go patrol. When I get back, I plan to be covered in the blood of murderers and _completely alone._ ”

Jason skidded his chair back from the table loudly, and went to go change into his Hood gear, making a big show of checking his weapons while his pain in the ass would-be-family members looked on silently.

He hadn’t managed to fully warm up by the time he made it outside again, but Kevlar and leather were a lot warmer than cotton denim, and this time he had on shoes, so he gritted his teeth and went through the motions of keeping his part of the city safe for citizens.

When he returned home just after the school rush (he hated the assholes who preyed on little kids. Hated them so fiercely it was hard to summon up reason when he met them before they could do harm,) he wasn’t actually covered in blood and no one had been killed; no one had been in months, actually, well. No one was there to see it.

Which was absolutely fine with him.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t even a day later that Bruce Wayne showed up in Dick’s bedroom while he was trying to make his fingers button a shirt, and Dick had to sigh a little to himself. He wondered which Bruce he was going to get—the Dark Knight of Gotham, or the overprotective would-be father figure. Neither one was really on his list of “People I want to see right now” but in listening to Jason’s advice, he’d willingly exposed himself to both of them.

Bruce had insisted on a full-body scan, which had told Dick what Jason already had—he’d been pretty bad off, but was mostly better now. Alfred had assessed it and insisted on another day of bed rest and at least three of light activity, which meant four days in the Mansion. Not the worst sentence in the world, but, well, kids had to leave their parents for a reason.

“I need you to go pretend to be Jason,” Bruce said, handing some paperwork to Dick. Dick stared at the fistful of sheets, uncomprehending.

“I—what? Why?”

“He owns the building, and he doesn’t have enough liquid assets to afford a contractor to fix the place up. I made some calls, had some people look into it. Apparently he handles all repair work himself and doesn’t notice late rent checks.”

“Well, it helps keep the crashpad secure?” Dick offered. It seemed a stupid reason even to his ears, but, well.

“I’ve checked under every alias we’ve known the Red Hood to use. He doesn’t have any other property.”

“Jesus, Bruce,” Dick said, realizing suddenly what was going on. “What the hell happened to all the, the, like, didn’t he own half of Gotham’s drug trade a couple of months ago?”

Bruce gave him this look, like it was Dick who was completely incomprehensible, not Jason Todd, ex-Robin, ex-dead guy, and now apparently ex-drug lord.

“He is no longer involved in any criminal enterprises, as far as I can discover. There is always the possibility that he’s adopted new aliases.”

“You just don’t think he has. Okay, cool. Why am I impersonating him?”

“The contractor won’t do the work without a signature from Jason Alvarez, and you look enough like the ID the DMV has on file to—“

“So, you’ve made me a fake ID from Jason’s real ID for his fake _identity_ so you can have his heat fixed in his building?”

“It’s not just Jason who is affected by this. He has 36 units in the building, all of them occupied, many of them by more people than are listed on their leases,” Bruce said, sounding irritated. But then, Dick thought, when wasn’t he annoyed?

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, I’m all for paying him back for keeping me from, you know, dying in brutal and fantastic ways at the hands of a bunch of gang-bangers. I’m just trying to get it all straight in my head.”

“It’s illegal to provide un-habitable dwellings as a landlord in this city,” Bruce said.

Dick stared down at the sheaf of papers; a hard plastic shape in the middle must be the driver’s license Bruce had mentioned. “So… you’re worried he’ll be sued? How many of his tenants even know what rights they have under local tenancy laws, come on.”

“His apartment doesn’t have heat. His apartment building doesn’t have _hot water_.”

“Bruce, you’ve probably just described the entire block Jason lives on, if not the whole street. This is—“

“You’re going to sign for the contracting; it’ll take place mainly during the day, when I’m hoping Jason will be sleeping and not notice anything.”

“You know, if you tried to do this to me, I’d probably stop speaking to you for at least three months.”

“Well, then I guess I’m not risking anything at all, with him.”

“He’ll probably drop the corpse of the next murderer/rapist/child slaver he takes out on the lawn instead.”

“Better that than your corpse,” Bruce said, and then there was a hug, which was just sort of outlandish and fixed in Dick’s head exactly how worried Bruce really had been over his abrupt disappearance and rumored death.

“Okay,” Dick said. “I’ll go pretend to be your _other_ adopted vagrant orphan son.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said. He tossed a bag of clothes at Dick. “It’s what he was wearing when I saw him, or near enough. Try to slouch more, and shuffle your feet.”

“I’m trying to fool the contractors, not his tenants,” Dick muttered, but Bruce was already gone, off to figure out more about Jason Todd’s lack of assets, Dick assumed.

And, hell. They didn’t exactly get along great, but if Jay really was hurting for money, he could have come to Dick, and Dick would’ve helped him figure something out.

The clothes really were close to what Jason had thrown on rather than be either Nightwing or naked in front of his neighbor, the shirt a little newer, the Levis significantly snugger, and Dick sighed before putting them on. He had to suck it in and wriggle to get the button fly done up, and once he was in the jeans, he blew out a breath.

“Damn, now I look like a prostitute,” he said. Bruce had underestimated his waistband by about three inches, it felt like. Whatever; he didn’t really have anything better. Most of his clothes were two or three steps up from what you could buy at a consignment store in the grimier parts of Gotham, a habit he hadn’t ever felt the need to kick.

The shirt showed way more skin than would be comfortable in October weather in Gotham, so Dick unearthed an old bomber jacket he hadn’t worn since high school to toss over it, and he shoved his feet into motorcycle boots because he was damned if he wasn’t going to be taking a bike out to Jason’s building to pretend to be him.

He flipped through the papers; most of it was financial data, there was an estimate from a HVAC contractor, and then the driver’s license. The picture was of Jason, shock of white hair dyed black, looking angry enough to kick puppies. Dick did look enough similar that he could pass as Jason Alvarez, provided no one decided to arrest him and fingerprint him. He ran a hand through his hair and hissed at the still-tender lump at the base of his skull. At least the bruise on his face would keep anyone from really comparing him to the picture of Jason on the ID.

He’d really been hit hard, he reflected. It was damned lucky Jason had been patrolling near enough to come to his rescue. Even if that meant the minor gang members who’d hurt him were all toast.

He wasn’t _quite_ vindictive enough to think they deserved it, but it was a near thing.

“Master Richard,” Alfred said as Dick wandered towards the garage to grab a bike for his trip. It sounded mildly censorious, so Dick looked up.

“Got a mission, Alfred,” Dick said, waving the paperwork.

“So it would seem. I’ve brought you some more things,” Alfred replied, unswayed. His feelings about the matter of Dick going out in his condition were obvious in his voice and expression.

He handed Dick a worn-out backpack heavy with, Dick opened to see, stun grenades and a handful of wing-dings.

“Just in case,” Alfred said.

“Thanks,” Dick replied, already stuffing the papers in the bag. “Gotta go, looks like my meeting’s in 26 minutes, and you know what traffic is like!” He jogged down the hallway so he wouldn’t have to endure any further concern from that quarter. Seriously, he was a grown man, not a kid-Robin anymore. Everyone could just stuff their overprotective instincts back down in the past where they belonged, thank you very much.

Traffic in Gotham was a bitch and a half, that much was true, but Dick had spent way too many years on a motorcycle to let a little thing like traffic slow him down. He wove through the stand-still chaos at breakneck speeds and got to Jason’s apartment building, which looked even more dilapidated at five in the evening than it did in predawn sleet, which was probably saying something.

When he wheeled his bike into what passed for a lobby, five men looked up at his entrance.

“Hi,” Dick said, waving a lackadaisical greeting. “Jason Alvarez.”

He took off his helmet and tossed it and his jacket over the bike. 

One of the men started to say “You’re no-“ but then another, whom Dick recognized as Joe from that morning, elbowed him in the side.

“Look, Jay,” Joe said. “We told ‘em you was busy with your other job, but none of them was listenin’, man. Sorry.”

“Hey,” Dick said. “It’s cool, there’s no problem. I’m just glad they’re offering a rush job, you know? Can’t have my tenants freezing before it’s even winter, right?”

The guy who’d been elbowed gave him a narrow-eyed, suspicious glare, and Dick mentally shrugged. Can’t win everything.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Alvarez,” the guy who must be the head contractor said. “I’m going to have to insist on seeing some ID here.”

“Totally understandable. Wouldn’t want to accidentally fix the heat in the _wrong_ dilapidated apartment building in the poorest part of town. That might make you look like a good guy, not a union-member, right?” Dick said, smiling a smile he’d stolen from Jason and fishing around in his backpack for the ID he’d also stolen from Jason.

Elbowed guy was looking pretty smug, and Joe was looking curious. Well, he’d show them he meant business.

“Uh,” Union-asshole-contractor said, after inspecting the ID all around. “Well, if you’re ready, we can look over the estimates again and you can give us our initial fees—“

“You accept credit card?” Dick asked, flashing the black AmEx that had been newly issued in Alvarez’s name on one of the many dummy Wayne corporate accounts. The guy’s eyes widened and he finally smiled.

“It won’t be a problem.”

“Cool; I’ve got the estimates you sent me in here, and—“ He pulled out the right pages and brandished them, “I think you’ll find that the best thing to do for this building is just overhaul everything. I need a new set of estimates, and I’ll want them within an hour. Will that suit?”

“No problem, Mr. Alvarez; no problem at all.”

Greed, Dick thought dismissively. That was everyone’s weak point, in the end.

As the contractors quickly went to reassess the boiler room, the two tenants strode over to him, one angry, one mildly impressed.

“You aren’t Jay,” the angry one said accusingly.

“Correct. Guess I was wrong thinking he wouldn’t have had contact with too many tenants.”

Joe offered Dick a hand. Dick barely hesitated before taking it. “This is Jay’s boyfriend Dick, remember I told you, Rick? How he acted rich and looked like his younger brother.”

“I’m older!” Dick protested, then thought perhaps he should have protested, like, say, anything else in that assessment. Anything at all.

“Right,” Joe said, shaking his head. “So why you wanna step in his business as our landlord, huh?”

“Because it’s really cold out, and it’s only going to get colder?” Dick tried.

Joe’s friend snorted. “Sure, and I’m the King of France.”

“France doesn’t—“ Dick started, then shook his head. “Look, he’s been doing me a huge favor, okay? I owe him a lot. Fixing the heat in his building isn’t that big a deal in comparison.”

Joe nodded, accepting that as true. It was, after all, pretty true. Joe’s friend seemed less appeased, but Dick wasn’t going to fret over it.

“I’m gonna stick with you. Union fucks aren’t trustworthy, and you’ve got a pretty face,” Joe said. Joe’s friend nodded solemnly, and Dick sighed.

“I can handle—“

“I’m Rick,” Joe’s friend said. “And we don’t make no one in this building handle the assholes alone. ‘S why the girls don’t need no pimps. Got it?”

And really, Dick didn’t have anything with which to respond to that, so he just nodded mutely and worried at the strap on his backpack with chilled fingers.

He probably should have kept his gloves on.

The contractors came back with new estimates, and Dick blithely forged Jason Alvarez’s signature on all the necessary documents, letting them read his card into their remote reader, and then signing that receipt as well. When it chirped a confirmation, one of the guys quietly passed over a twenty to one of the other guys, and Dick rolled his eyes.

“So, when do you start?” Dick asked.

“We got a lot of clients need their heat looked at, this time of year,” head contractor-asshole guy replied, and before Rick could do more than grumble threateningly, Dick wrote a number on the page with the estimates.

“If it gets done within the week,” Dick said sweetly, biting his lip a little and looking up at the guy from under his lashes. It was Joe’s fault, really, bringing up the fact that Dick was _pretty_. He hadn’t spent time as a fashion model to learn _nothing_ , after all.

“Yeah, we can swing that,” head asshole-perverted fucktard said, while the one who’d handed over the cash when Dick’s charge had gone through whistled, low and impressed.

“I’d really appreciate that,” Dick replied. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your very valuable time, sir. I’ve got to get back to the office. See you gentlemen in a week to complete payment?”

“Sure thing, boss,” the head contractor said, standing up and offering his hand to shake. Dick took it, suppressing a cringe when it lingered too long.

The other two guys headed down, presumably to get started, and the head contractor left through the main entrance to the lobby.

Dick rubbed the bruise on his eye and tried not to groan. Joe patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“Your boyfriend is upstairs, probably still asleep at this hour. You wanna go wake him up?”

Dick groaned again. And now Joe was trying to help him set up a good-morning blowjob for Jason.

This? This was his life right now. And he couldn’t even tell Joe the truth about not being Jason’s boyfriend, because it offered an all-too-convenient excuse for his actions.

“No, thanks,” Dick said. “I wasn’t lying to the asstard with the sweaty palms; I’ve got things to do. Al—the butle—my, uhm, uncle? Will throw a fit if I’m not in bed, recovering, within the hour. And no one wants to see that. I’m too old for his mother-hen routine, really, but…”

Joe was shaking his head, and Rick hissed to Joe “The fuck is Jay doing with the sorta guy who has a _butler_ , for Christ’s sake?” none too quietly, so Dick wheeled the bike back out of the lobby and hopped on before he even cleared the sidewalk.

He hoped to be long gone before either of them started speculating on where and how he’d gotten his damned shiner.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason Todd was miserable. He’d decided to keep pulling double patrols until Nightwing yelled at him not to, just to make sure his territory didn’t suffer from any bleed-over of increased criminal activity, and of course he’d managed to get into three fights with heavy hitters, so that he was favoring his left knee by the end of the night.

To top it all off, he’d developed a serious case of the sniffles, and it was threatening to devolve into full-blown sneezing by the time he’d dislocated the shoulder of some guy sitting across the street from the public school bus stop nearest his building. Seriously, the kind of people who preyed on kids in Red Hood’s territory must be pretty masochistic. It’s not like he was particularly subtle about what he did to guys like that, after all.

Batman was waiting for him, looming in the entry to his building like _he_ owned the place, and between his leaking sinuses and his aching knee, Jason was not feeling very hospitable.

“The fuck do you want?” he snapped, shoving violently past him to the relative shelter of his lobby. As soon as Batman was no longer parked in the doorway, the four mothers who’d been watching the building’s kids while they waited for the bus crept back inside. Jason nodded reassuringly at Kari when she made as if to approach him and his guest. She made a face at him; she was too young to not be going back to high school, but Jason hadn’t been able to convince her to go; she was too afraid that CPS might find her and try to get to her kid again to risk that, no matter Jason’s reassurances, and she was way too protective of both Jason and his alter-ego for her own good.

He was pretty sure she knew they were one and the same too. She, Rick, and Joe were all too-damned smart for their own good, really.

“To visit,” Batman replied gruffly.

“You’re gonna have half these people aware of your identity, you keep this up. None of them are stupid, you know.”

Batman didn’t respond, didn’t even shrug, and Jason turned his back to him and started up the stairs.

“I’ve been doing some research,” Batman said, following Jason.

“Yeah? I’m shocked. Lemme guess: it was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe?”

“It was Jason Alvarez; the only active alias for one Red Hood, and he’s 30 grand in the hole.”

“Sounds serious. You should go make sure he’s not starting an illegal child prostitution ring to make up the shortfall,” Jason said.

“Somehow, I doubt that’s likely.”

Jason grunted by way of response.

They continued the rest of the way up the stairs in peace, and Jason made sure no one was in the hall before he unlocked the door to his apartment and not the one down the hall he used as the Red Hood.

“Come on in,” Jason said, after Batman had followed him and taken a seat at his table. He still had all three chairs, which was a weird sight, but not as weird as goddamned Batman sitting in one of them.

He took off his helmet, then he shrugged out of his jacket. He’d have liked to strip off the costume pants as well, looked at his knee and maybe even considered icing it, though the thought of _more_ cold made him remember the damned heat, and he groaned as he thought about going down to poke at it some more.

He was pretty sure he needed to replace the hot water heater entirely, and the thought of the cost of that made him rub at his temples in frustration. He was not ready for the rest of this month. He’d like for it to just pause and let him take a second to breathe.

“Jason,” Batman said, reminding him of his presence. “You should come home.”

“Oh? And what are the conditions of that? You want me to turn myself in? Spend some time in prison to prove I’ve learned the error of my ways? Well, news flash, I haven’t. My way is _better_ ,” he snarled, whipping around to glare at him.

“No,” Batman said. “I think we both know you’ve already satisfied my conditions.”

“I haven’t!” Jason said, reacting with blind defense. “I’m not Dick Motherfucking Grayson, and I never will be, okay?”

“But you haven’t killed anyone since you blew up that apartment building, have you? You’ve severed every tie you had with anything resembling the criminal underground in the city. You’re the most liked landlord on this block, possibly the whole city, and you’re patrolling both as Nightwing and as the Red Hood to keep things from escalating while he’s out of commission.”

Jason made a dismissive noise and sat on his bed. The mattress sank all the way to the ground; everything in his life was conspiring to undermine him.

“You didn’t even kill the gang members who assaulted him. That was what led me to all of this,” Batman said, tossing a folder down on the bed next to Jason.

Against his better instincts, Jason picked it up and started flipping through it. “Whadaya know? It’s Jason Todd’s life in black and white,” he muttered, staring at the facts and figures laid out in stark reality.

He looked up when Batman didn’t say anything. “I don’t need you,” he sneered.

Batman nodded once, then disappeared through Jason’s window like he’d never been in the apartment at all.

Jason was suddenly too tired to even take off his pants, let alone look at his various injuries and tend to the worst of them, so he laid down on the mattress and let sleep overcome everything else.

***

“Is this Dick?” came the query when Dick blearily answered his phone. He’d taken his first patrol in almost two weeks the night before, and he was woefully out-of-practice with trouncing would-be criminals.

He’d fallen into bed in an exhausted heap less than an hour ago, and his phone ringing had barely registered.

“Yus,” Dick said, wiping his mouth. He always woke up covered in drool when he’d been exhausted. It was part of the reason he avoided staying the night with many women. It was hard to maintain a reputation as a rebellious womanizing former-heir when he drooled all over the pillow. “’Sup?”

“Jay’s not answering his door, and we’re getting worried. Red Hood wasn’t looking out for the kids the last few mornings either.”

“Uh,” Dick said. “Is that a thing? That the Red Hood does?”

“Sure,” the voice on the phone said, sounding suddenly skeptical. “Maybe I shouldn’t’ve called. You think he’s a criminal like everyone else, don’t you?”

“Jason?” Dick asked.

“No,” the voice said. “The Red Hood.”

“You don’t sound like him,” Dick said. “’M tired, Jay, lemme alone, kay?”

There was a sound like a fight on the line, and an angry, growly voice took over. “You’re his boyfriend, you need to go make sure he’s alive. I’d go, but B&E would violate my parole.”

“Of course it would,” Dick said. “Rick and Joe?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d ask how you got this number, but… Look, I’m, I’m… Okay, I’ve gotta find clothes, I’ll be there in like, half-an-hour. Don’t break any laws until I get there, got it? You probably won’t be able to disable his alarm system anyway.” He ended the call, and rolled out of his bed.

His bed was much nicer than a mattress on the floor, because it was really the only reason he was ever in his studio walk up. He also had a proper kitchen table and matching dishes, but other than that (and the heat), his apartment wasn’t much different from Jason’s, save for the fact that Dick wasn’t masochist enough to live in the parts of town he patrolled in. It would be too easy for his identity to be revealed (as Jason’s apparently had been, judging by Joe’s conversation,) by nosy neighbors, in that case.

He pulled on his own clothes, not the jeans that he’d been wearing to check up on the contractors in Jason’s building (who’d been done yesterday and taken their bonus with gusto.)

His face was still pretty messed up; even uglier now that it was healing; green and brown and still violet in some places, but it wasn’t like he was going anywhere that anyone would comment on it; they would have already if that were the case.

Joe was actually wringing his hands when Dick wheeled his motorcycle into lobby. Rick narrowed his eyes at the bike and demanded “How many bikes you got, Dick?”

Dick ignored him. “You gonna come with me, or are you just here to look anxious while your boyfriend interrogates me?”

Joe grabbed Dick’s hand in lieu of response and started drawing him up the stairs.

The door wouldn’t unlock. Dick didn’t remember there having been anything special about the lock, and was relieved when Rick grunted and snagged his picks from him and went to work himself.

He couldn’t make the lock work either.

“New plan,” Dick said, a little concerned now that they’d been poking at the lock for a good ten minutes and Jason hadn’t thrown open the door and demanded to know what the hell was going on. “You wait here; I’ll try the window.”

Rick made a noise of outraged protest, and Joe said “Wait, how?” but Dick ignored them both and made his way up the last flight of stairs to the roof access door, which obligingly opened to Dick’s lockpicks, which reassured him a little bit.

On the roof, he didn’t have any of his usual tools, so he just made his way over to the side of the building Jason’s window had to be on, and dropped over the side, hoping for a ledge.

There was one, and he made his way past Miss Stacey’s window to the shoddy, locked fire escape that adjoined both hers and Jason’s apartments.

That lock was easy to open, which made sense, considering Jason probably only used it when he was in a hurry, and as soon as he got through the window, the tell-tale steady blink of red from the panel next to the door doubled its speed. Dick cursed under his breath and pried the panel off, disarming it without much effort. It was good, but Dick had been trained by the best, after all.

He unlocked the door then, letting Joe and Rick in despite his desire to do anything but that. They had been the ones to call him, after all.

“I thought you meant you knew the code,” Rick said, raising an eyebrow at the broken remains of the alarm panel.

“Nope,” Dick said. “Just that he would use something a bit more sophisticated than your usual upper-middle class suburban family.”

“How did you—“

Jason made a funny choked noise from his bed, and Dick redirected his attention to the situation at hand.

“Hey, little wing,” he said softly, making his way over to the bed. The room was much warmer now that the heat was fixed, but it looked like Joe had taken the chairs and dishes back.

Jason stirred again, and when Dick finally got close enough to really look at him, he could see the problem.

“Jesus, Jay,” Dick said, kneeling next to him on the mattress and pressing the back of his hand to one sweaty cheek. “You’re pretty sick over here.”

Jason startled awake, flailing up violently but aimlessly, and Dick dodged three swings with his usual finesse before catching Jason’s fist on the fourth attempt.

“Whoa, hey now, you recognize me?”

“Dickiebird?” Jason replied, unsure.

“Sure,” Dick said, wincing a little at the hated nickname. Rick smothered a laugh behind Dick, and Jason stared wildly around himself.

“Ricky? Joe? What—“

“Jason, how long have you been sick?” Dick redirected gently.

“’M _fine_ Dickie. Don’t go tellin’ on me.”

“Uh huh,” Dick said. “You made _me_ go play invalid at the mansion. You really think I’ll let you off the hook that easy?”

Jason started coughing. It was wet and full-chested, and Dick immediately shifted his grip so that Jason was coughing into his shoulder, mostly upright. 

“He needs the clinic,” Joe said, sounding overly worried.

“Yeah,” Rick agreed. “Let’s get him downstairs. I’ll call a cab. You got any cash on you, Joe?”

“Kari might,” Joe said, sounding dubious.

“I’ve got money,” Dick said. “You should go to work, Rick, I don’t want your parole officer getting into this, you know?”

“I’m staying with you guys,” Joe said. “But Dick’s right, Ricky, you’ve got to get over to the plant.”

Rick glared at Dick, but he nodded after a moment. “If anything happens,” he said, not finishing the threat.

“Jay-bird,” Dick said, indulging in the same ridiculous nickname scheme Jason used with him, because Joe thought they were dating, so why the hell not, “We’re gonna go to the clinic. Now’d be the time to bite me in retaliation.”

“Fuck you, Grayson.” 

“Dick… Grayson?” Joe said, voice full of incredulity. Dick glanced at him, but didn’t comment. It’s not like it mattered right then.

“Up and at ‘em,” Dick said, pulling Jason to his feet. Jason tilted alarmingly to the side, and when Dick managed to right him, his knee buckled. “Jason, what’s wrong with your knee?”

“Stupid pedophile,” Jason replied. “Blackjack.”

“Jesus,” Joe said, and Dick silently agreed with that assessment.

“First it was a bank robber though,” Jason added thoughtfully, dropping off into a cough.

“How many times did you get hit, dumbass?”

“Dunno. Four?”

“Joe? I’ve got his right side, but you need to help on the left and steer. I’m strong enough to take his weight, but he’s enough taller that—“

“Got it, Mr. Grayson,” Joe replied.

“Seriously?” Dick asked. “Seriously? Right now? Just, Dick. Please.”

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s _son_ ,” Joe protested.

“Ward. Now I’m just a guy, like anyone else, honest.”

Jason snickered.

“And my _boyfriend_ is in dire need of a medical professional,” Dick continued nastily. It shut Jason up, for sure.

“Right, uh, sorry, Dick. I’ve got him; let’s get him to the curb.”

By the second flight of stairs, Jason was crying silently from pain, and Dick was ready to give up and drop him out a window. It would be much easier, he thought.

“Halfway there,” Joe lied with false cheer. Jason whimpered quietly, which turned into a much louder coughing fit. Dick quickly braced himself to make sure he didn’t drop Jason, all joking aside.

Somehow they made it down the stairs and into the cab. Once at the clinic, Joe went ahead and grabbed an ancient wheelchair while Dick waited for the taxi to run Jason's credit card.

Inside, the clinic was occupied mainly by empty-eyed young women and mothers with crying children.

Dick fished Jason’s driver’s license out of his wallet and took it and the AmEx up to the counter. “I need to check a patient in for urgent care,” he explained quietly to the woman running reception. She glanced at him, and there was something dark and resigned in her expression as she cataloged him. Dick ran a self-conscious hand over the bruise on his face before passing the card and ID over.

“My… ah… boyfriend. His knee’s busted and I think he’s got pneumonia. His fever’s really high, he’s got a wet, productive chest-cough, and he can’t put weight on his knee.”

She glanced at both items, then back at him. “Fill out this form, please. If you can’t or don’t want to answer something, just leave it blank, please don’t make anything up. If you’d like to speak with a counselor while your partner is with the doctor, just tap the counter twice.”

Dick smiled and nodded and didn’t tap the counter. She looked even sadder, and he made a mental note of the name on her badge: Karen Gaines. He’d see what he could do for her. There had to be a grant or something the Wayne Foundation offered for smart, caring young women who tried to quietly save the city in daylight hours, right?

It should have disturbed Dick that he could fill in all of the blanks on the form, even for the differences the Jason Alvarez identity had from Jason Todd, but instead he let the stupid questions and too-small blanks distract him from the thoughts about why Jason would be dumb enough to keep patrolling on a bum knee right up until he, apparently, had succumbed to pneumonia.

“You’re a complete dumbass,” he informed Jason. Joe nodded in agreement, and Jason’s protest died a-borning in the throes of a nasty coughing fit. There was blood in the sputum, and Dick flicked at the mess on his shirt. He should have taken the time to wriggle into his Jason clothes instead of wearing his own. He’d liked this shirt, but it was white, and no matter what the women in his life told him, it _was_ impossible to get blood out of white clothing.

Jason didn’t stop coughing except to wheeze for breath for the next ten minutes straight, and all of the mothers had tugged their sick children tightly to their chest and were giving him and Jason _looks_ when the triage nurse apparently took pity on them and showed them to a curtained alcove that Dick was pretty sure was meant to be an exam room. He wrinkled his nose in distaste, then got a sudden mental image of what the waiting room of a hospital full of people _not_ so involved in their own affairs and misery would look like if someone identified him as Dick Grayson, and he decided it wasn’t really so bad after all.

Joe glanced at his watch and paled, so Dick sent him off with a reassuring smile and a promise to call if he needed anything, and Dick was left to a staring contest with the bulky male triage nurse over, apparently, who was going to lift Jason out of the wheelchair and on to the exam table.

“Jay, babe,” Dick said, giving up the staring contest for a lost cause, “You fucking owe me.”

He first pulled Jason up against his own chest, pausing for dramatic tension as a coughing fit overwhelmed him, and then he carefully maneuvered them the foot over to the other table before he lifted him enough to get his ass situated firmly.

The rest was basic arm and leg placement, and since no pillows seemed to be forthcoming, Dick resigned himself to his fate as Jason’s cuddle toy for the foreseeable future, and got up on the table with him so he could hold him upright.

The triage nurse nodded, apparently pleased, which, way to help out, asshole, and disappeared back through the curtain. Several moments later, the sounds of a baby screaming echoed through the hallway.

“Dick?” Jason asked, swaying back to make eye contact. “’S cold. You should be at the mansion. ‘S cold.” He followed the thought with a sudden case of violent, full-bodied shivers and Dick held on tight. This had to be way worse than a concussion, he thought. He’d definitely be one up in the favor department after this ordeal was over.

Jason buried his sweaty face in the side of Dick’s neck, and he couldn’t help the hand that drifted up to smooth through his damp hair. “It’s okay, Jay-bird,” Dick soothed. “We’re at the clinic. The doctor’ll get you all fixed up in no time, promise.”

The triage nurse cleared his throat quietly, and Dick looked up to see him returned. Dick refused to feel embarrassed or anything; Jason was clearly in pain, and Dick was thoroughly reminded of how patient Jason had been the other week when Dick had latched on to him in _his_ delirium, so. Fair’s fair.

“Before I get to him, I want to make sure that your face is okay,” the nurse said. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

“I’m fine,” Dick said. “You should see the other guy,” he joked. “Jay’s pretty sick though.”

The nurse nodded slowly, eying Jason warily. It was obvious that he, too, thought Jason had been ‘the other guy,’ which, well. Not like Dick hadn’t faced similar questions before, back when he’d been Robin.

“That’s fine. If you change your mind, just say so, okay?”

Dick nodded. Jason started coughing again.

“I’m going to need to listen to his chest,” the nurse said. “It’s probably best if we just get him into some scrubs. The fever’s got to have him miserable in those clothes.”

Dick looked down at Jason and only then did he realize he was wearing the Kevlar-reinforced leather of his costume; luckily, without the red helmet, it wasn’t very distinctive.

“Right,” Dick said.

“I’ll go get some scissors, then,” the nurse said. Dick shook his head, juggling Jason’s dead weight and fumbling his knife out of his pants pocket.

“Try this instead,” Dick offered it hilt-first to the nurse who gave Dick a confused look. “Coz of the leather?” Dick suggested. The nurse didn’t look terribly appeased, but he used the knife to cut through Jason’s clothes with practiced ease, leaving Dick to peel the remaining scraps of fabric away from Jason’s clammy skin.

“Jesus, Jay,” Dick said, noting the red marks where the leather had rubbed. “When was the last time you changed clothes?”

“Tryin’ t’ get me naked, Dickiebirdie?” Jason mumbled indistinctly into Dick’s neck. “No fair.”

“Just returning the favor,” Dick replied. The scarring that covered Jason’s torso was pretty awful, and some of the more recent bruises looked like they hurt. There was a series of precise bite-marks up Jason’s right arm that Dick had a feeling belonged to him.

All of that, (well, save the burn scars,) paled in comparison to the watermelon Jason was using in lieu of a knee. Dick’s own knee twinged violently in sympathy at the sight, and Dick had to adjust his grip on Jason to ease what looked like strain.

“Mother of God,” the nurse said, returning with some threadbare scrubs. “What happened?”

“He said something about a black jack,” Dick said grimly. “I wasn’t there though, I have no idea. He, uh, he—picks fights in bars, sometimes?” And Dick used to be way better at lying. Went to show he needed more civilian friends to keep in practice, and—no. That was a really really shitty reason to keep civilian friends. Seriously. Where was his mind at?

“In bars,” the nurse replied flatly. Dick shrugged. Jason started shivering violently again, this time burrowing into Dick’s chest for warmth.

“Let’s get him dressed again,” the nurse said at that, and Dick was glad he didn’t have to respond.

The diagnosis was about what Dick had figured; Jason had pneumonia and should be admitted to a real hospital (Jason, predictably, had stirred himself enough to drowsily, if violently, protest such a fate,) though the knee injury was entirely soft tissue, which meant the clinic once again recommended the hospital. Dick silently thanked God for Kevlar and Jason’s quick reflexes, because he didn’t want to contemplate what a fracture might entail.

Dick was tired of helping them lug Jason’s sorry hide all over the clinic. He was more tired of answering every nurse who wandered by that he was fine, thank you, and no, Jason hadn’t hit him.

They finally discharged Jason, after they’d dumped an IV in him, loaded Dick down with a bag that held the remnants of Jason’s clothes, oodles of antibiotics and advice about care, and gave them a knee brace and about a million ice packs and lots of instructions that somewhat conflicted about the knee injury, and let Dick and Jason get into a taxi without much more fussing about the whole bruised face thing, which was a definite relief.

Dick gave the taxi driver the mansion address after some thinking. He’d been joking about turnabout earlier, but…

Well, it was time to see whether Bruce had been honest about the safehouse thing, before.


	4. Chapter 4

Jason was having the best fever-based hallucinatory dreams of his life, which was good because if he didn’t organize his consciousness enough to get to a glass of water soon, he’d probably die of dehydration, alone in his apartment.

The dreams were pretty nice though. Dick had come, and had called him little wing like he was still a kid that no one had realized yet wasn’t worth loving, maybe, and had petted his hair and back through the coughing and hugged him through the chills.

There had been other people too; a mean-ass nurse who kept asking why he’d had to punish Dick, which, fuck no. Seriously? Punish Dick? Dick was the _good one_ , and he’d said so over and over until Dick had come back to pet his hair again, whispering that Jason was good too, and hadn’t that been nice?

He was a lot more comfortable now, and the coughing was less intense. Jason was pretty sure that meant he was getting too weak to cough or be uncomfortable, which would be worrying, but his knee didn’t hurt so badly anymore either, so he wasn’t about to complain.

Last time he’d died, it had hurt a fuck of a lot _more_ right at the end, not less.

He opened his eyes on his childhood room, furnished and decorated the exact same way it had been the night before he’d run away to find his birth mother, right down to the stack of books on the dresser he was supposed to be reading for English class, and the one (he checked) in his nightstand drawer Dick had suggested he check out if he was bored. The bookmark was still on a page partway through, though it had been so long that he had no idea if it was in the same spot.

Sitting up, he started coughing again, but there wasn’t any blood like he remembered from hallucinatory-Dick’s pristine white shirt, so he just wiped his hands on his… Superman pajama pants. Really? That seemed unlikely, but whatever. 

There were crutches right by the bed, and his knee was braced under the Superman pajamas, so he shrugged and grabbed them, using them to lever up and out of the bed.

He took an experimental breath.

Better.

Weird.

Well, dead or hallucinating, this altar to his childhood was majorly creepy, so he was getting the hell out. Might as well see if he couldn’t get some dead/hallucinatory water while he was up, right?

The hall belonged to the mansion, which didn’t speak well for his hallucination theory, and he could hear chatter from the kitchen as he approached it.

Hovering on the threshold, his crutches digging uncomfortably into his armpits, he watched Dick set up a tray with a covered bowl of soup, hot tea, juice, and silverware.

“I doubt he’ll be awake to appreciate it, Alfred,” Dick was saying, though he was folding a napkin into precise lines.

“Indeed, Master Richard,” Alfred said in tones that implied he knew exactly what Dick was trying to pull and was having none of it. Dick sighed like a put upon child.

“I wish he’d have let them admit him to a hospital.”

“Hospital?” Jason asked. “Who’s sick?”

A butter knife went winging in Jason’s direction. He managed to sidestep in time, but the crutches and his aching knee made that a very near thing. “Jesus, Dickiebird. Overreact much?”

Dick followed the knife across the room, and Jason was abruptly pulled into the other man’s arms, strong and sure around his shoulders. His chest got tight, so he coughed some, turning his head so most of the noise and phlegm was muffled by Dick’s shoulder.

“They said you should start getting better within twenty-four hours, but dammit, you were pretty far gone. If you hadn’t tried to stab me with a pen when they tried to get you to go to the hospital, they’d have admitted you overnight. Are you hungry?”

Jason considered that.

“I… am not?”

“When was the last time you ate anything? The IV at the clinic doesn’t count.”

Jason opened his mouth to answer. Considered all the weird fever dreams he’d been having. “Two questions,” he said instead.

“Sure, shoot.”

“What day is it, and are we at the mansion?”

“It’s Friday, and yeah, we are. Fair’s fair, after all.”

Ah. So, that exchange had happened. Shit. “Uh, I ate on Wednesday.”

“If you would like to take a seat, Master Jason,” Alfred said, in his this-isn’t-actually-a-request voice, so Jason hobbled over to a chair and sat, resting his crutches against the table.

While he couldn’t actually smell the soup, the steam rising from the pan looked like it smelled delicious and his stomach reacted accordingly.

He was silent for his first bowl of soup, and while Alfred dished him up a second one, he stared at Dick, getting a feel for his mood.

“Third question,” Jason said, blowing on his replenished soup. Dick glanced up at him, a politely curious smile on his face. “This isn’t a fever-dream is it?”

Dick shook his head, scrunching up his eyes in a way that managed to remind Jason of that wriggling warm thing living in his stomach. First Bruce, now Dick? He needed out of the city, and soon.

“So, the room I was in…?”

Dick suddenly looked incredibly apologetic. “I tried to convince them to put you in my room or one of the spare rooms, but… Well. You know how he gets.”

“The… that was a very creepy way to wake up,” Jason settled on for a response.

Dick shrugged. “Sorry? But at least you woke up, dumbass.”

“And that!” Jason demanded. “What is that? You’re the one who got snagged by your own grappling hook!”

“And you’re the one who almost died of pneumonia in your apartment by yourself!” Dick retorted. “My injuries were from _work_. You had a _chest cold_.”

“And a fucked up knee from some asshole pedo in _your_ part of town! If you’d just get over yourself and kill—“

“That’s enough,” Bruce interjected into the suddenly heated argument between the two, and Jason cut a guilty gaze towards the doorway.

“Sorry,” Dick muttered, sounding like a bitchy teenager all over again. Jason didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t fucking well sorry. Instead he scowled around at everyone universally.

Alfred brought Bruce a plate of sandwiches to go with his soup, and Jason’s mouth started watering. He wasn’t sure his stomach could actually handle solids after such a long fever and time without food.

He tried really hard not to pout, and he scraped the bottom of his bowl of soup for the bits of vegetables and chicken and rice there, and then Alfred was filling the bowl and putting a toasted cheese sandwich, crusts removed, cut in triangles, next to the bowl of soup.

Jason accidentally made eye contact with him, and the expression—well, there was that twisty thing in his gut again. “Thanks,” he said, ducking his head back down.

“Are you feeling better?” Bruce asked, setting the sandwich he’d been eating back on his plate.

“Yeah, a lot,” Jason said. “Glad Dick found me when he did.” He was feeling rather proud of himself for that bit of politeness, when Dick dumped a handful of pills on the plate next to the sandwich.

“Antibiotics, stuff for the symptoms, narcotics for the knee, and a multivitamin,” Dick said. Because he hated Jason, he didn’t point out which ones were which, so Jason worked on swallowing them down one at a time.

Once they were down, he went back to his soup.

“Speaking of, you’ll need to fix your alarms.”

“What the hell did you do to my alarm?” Jason demanded, focusing a glare on Dick.

“I had to break in to get to you, dumbass,” Dick said, a smile quirking his lips.

“Great; now anyone could just go in and steal my shit.”

“Steal what?” Dick asked. “Your mattress? Your collection of thrift store plates and dumpster blankets?”

“Maybe I have other stuff. Maybe I have, like. A computer or something,” Jason retorted, trying to think of the sort of thing people who actually spent time in their apartments kept there.

“You don’t have a computer?” Bruce asked.

“I just said—“

“He doesn’t,” Dick replied. “He uses newspapers to do his research.”

“Hey! This isn’t—“

“Then he probably hasn’t seen this,” Bruce said, pushing a tablet across to Jason.

“I do know what a tablet is,” Jason snarked, but he knew that wasn’t what Bruce meant, so he accepted the device and looked at the search he’d pulled up.

“Nighthood?” Jason mused. “Better than Redwing, I guess. They’re—huh.”

“You shot five guys in the kneecaps in less than 40 seconds,” Bruce said. “They’re very angry.”

“Also, non-ambulatory,” Jason said.

No one laughed.

Jason scrolled down, and then, then the pictures got—

“Motherfuckers,” he hissed angrily. “They—those are _children_. Why would they…”

“Jay, you’re pretty well known for how you react to crimes against children,” Dick said, reaching to pat Jason’s arm. Jason jerked away.

“I need a shower,” he snarled, already planning how to get the hell out of the mansion and back into Gotham proper so he could _end_ this gang. Fuck his former-family’s ideals; these bastards were targeting kids to get to _him_ , and they were going to die.

He was going to castrate them and choke them with their own cocks, and then he was going to watch them bleed to death, and he was going to _enjoy_ it.

“You’re non-ambulatory,” Dick pointed out quietly. He wasn’t looking at Jason, so Jason didn’t waste the energy to glare at him. “And this is as much about me as it is you.”

Jason hesitated, half out of his chair. “Like hell it is,” he said, but it lacked the ferocity he’d meant to imbue it with.

“I’d suggest you stick with a bath,” Bruce said, like the conversation was really about bathing, and Jason spared a moment to give him an incredulous stare. “You can’t take crutches into the shower with you.”

Jason shook his head and worked on sopping up his soup with the toasted sandwich Alfred had made for him. He really missed Alfred’s toasted cheese sandwiches; he’d tried making some on his own once he’d settled into his apartment and started thinking about things that didn’t involve how much Batman had fucked him over, but he’d caught them on fire and they’d had to evacuate the building.

He hadn’t had toasted cheese sandwiches since the night before Batman had decided to ground him from being Robin, actually.

He set the soggy sandwich down and just looked at it.

“I’m going to go take a _bath_ ,” he said, and this time he didn’t mean he was running away.

Dick nodded and stood to help him out of his chair. “I’ll supervise,” he suggested, fooling no one when he snagged the tablet off the table and tucked it under his arm.

Jason went towards Dick’s room instead of his own, rationalizing the whole way—Dick’s clothes would fit better than anything adolescent-Jason’d had in his closet, Dick’s bathroom had always been nicer, with a bigger tub, Dick’s room was closer—and unwilling to admit, even to himself, that he could not go back to that shrine to his adolescence.

Dick didn’t say anything, just kept pace well out of the way of Jason’s crutches, and kept sending concerned glances in Jason’s direction.

“I’m sorry I busted your alarm system,” was what the damned idiot chose to open with, and Jason wanted to hit him.

Would have, too, if he weren’t limping his way down the halls of the mansion with a busted knee.

“I’m sorry I got too sick to kick your ass for it,” Jason said, and it was mean, but Dick sent him a soft smile anyway.

Dick insisted on coming into the bathroom with Jason, fiddling with the taps to make sure the water was right, pointing out the different shampoos and soaps and things like Jason couldn’t read the bottles, getting out towels and a bathrobe and turning off the taps when the tub was filled.

Jason didn’t know how to get rid of him, didn’t even know if he wanted to get rid of him, so he leaned heavily on his crutches and watched.

After Dick’s fussing died down, Jason leaned one of the crutches up against the counter and reached to touch Dick’s cheek, just under his eye where the bruising was at its ugliest. It wasn’t swollen, and Dick didn’t pull away like it was tender, so Jason probed the bone yet again, the gesture familiar enough to ground him.

“You have too many kinds of shampoo,” Jason said, moving his hand to the back of Dick’s head, where the swelling had been, only instead of seeking fingers, he cupped his palm there, letting Dick’s longer hair twist around his fingers.

Dick sucked in a breath, then, and leaned forward. Jason spent a brief, blessed moment utterly confused by the action, but then Dick was pressing dry, salty-tasting lips to his, and Jason was being kissed.

He didn’t know what to do. Dick shouldn’t be kissing him—he had a vivid recollection of Dick attacking him in full costume, and then another of him, concussed, biting Jason when he tried to bundle him up for a trip to the clinic.

He let Dick kiss him until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and then he remembered his hand in Dick’s hair. He used it to gently pull Dick back. Dick went only far enough to tilt his head back and gaze into Jason’s eyes searchingly, but then it seemed he didn’t see what he wanted, because he sighed heavily and pulled away properly.

“Sorry, Jason,” Dick said, laughing a little. “My bad. Forget it happened.”

“Why would you do that?” Jason demanded, suddenly. He, confused as he had been in the moment, was abruptly certain he’d never forget the last five minutes for as long as he lived.

“Because I’ve spent the last two weeks surrounded by people who think I’m sleeping with you?” Dick suggested, and he sounded angry, which made Jason feel instantly guilty. He wanted to reach out, pull Dick back in; explore the texture of those silky strands of hair, and figure out, maybe, exactly why everyone seemed so fond of kissing all the time. (Dick was good at everything else he did, why not kissing?)

“Wait, Bruce and Alfred think I took advantage of you?” Jason said, interrupting his line of thought and feeling abruptly sick to his stomach. He managed to maneuver on one crutch over to the toilet, where he shut the lid and lowered himself on top.

“What? Wait, really? You think I’d…” Dick was suddenly close enough to kiss again, and his eyes were earnest; painfully so.

Jason dropped his gaze. Jesus, what exactly _he supposed to think._

“God, no, Jay, I wouldn’t lie about something like that. It’s just—ugh, it’s a really long story, but in a way it’s your fault for telling your neighbor I was your boyfriend.” 

“You were unconscious for like, four days, Dickie,” Jason said, sneering. “How would you know if it were a lie, huh?” 

Dick slapped him. He didn’t even have the courtesy of hitting Jason properly; instead, he put full force behind an open-handed slap. Jason brought a hand to his cheek moments before the sting registered, and he knew he was gawping again. 

“You’re an asshole, and I don’t know why I even bother,” Dick said, standing up. “Enjoy the bath, Hood. When you’re done, we need to track down these murderers and come up with a plan to put them away for good.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Dick felt like a moron. He’d been told, frequently, that he was an idiot or a dumbass or whatever other synonym someone preferred, but he’d never actually felt like one.

Jason was an asshole; he knew that. He’d thought, maybe, that by showing Jason that he wasn’t the most loathed person in Gotham he’d be able to…

To what though? He wondered what his end game had been there, and thought maybe blaming the kiss that had failed (and Dick might start capitalizing that in the future: The Kiss That Failed; it reminded him of the old sci-fi books he’d read as a kid and kept trying to make Jason read as a young adult; the Ship Who Searched, the City Who Fought, the Boy Who Existed to Piss Dick Off, the Kiss That Failed,) on the fact that everyone in the niche Jason had carved for himself in the world assumed Dick was his boyfriend was a dumb excuse, but he had no idea what else he _could_ blame for it.

Still, still there was the case, and the sooner he got #Nighthood off the top trends for half the internet, the sooner those poor tortured, murdered kids stopped getting pics splashed all over the web, the sooner those kids were no longer being tortured and murdered period, the sooner he could be rid of Jason.

He’d even considered, briefly, taking the case by himself and letting Jason recover from the pneumonia in peace, but the pure, blind, murderous rage that had flicked across Jason’s face when Bruce had shown him the pictures had shown that to be delusional.

He’d have to involve Jason in this case, and he’d probably have to knock Jason out to keep him from murdering whoever the hell was hurting these kids, and then he’d have to add his own name to the list of people Jason hated for a very good reason.

But until then, he had a case to solve.

Bruce had figured out who three of the five people Jason had shot were by linking aliases. The other two had never used the aliases they’d checked into the hospital under before, and weren’t using them now, so the computers were working on known associates of the three they’d figured out along with basic biometric data.

Jason had had a point though; these guys were out for the count. They had to have supporters.

Dick was glaring at crime scene photos and trying to figure out if there were any clues only he or Jason might notice when the door opened and Jason emerged, wrapped thoroughly in a bathrobe and several towels, leaning on one crutch, the knee brace held loosely in his free hand.

“I couldn’t make it fit right,” Jason admitted. He didn’t actually ask for Dick’s help, because that, of course, would have been the normal thing to do. He just hobbled over to Dick’s bed and sat down next to Dick, laying the knee brace just within reach, a hesitantly expectant look on his face.

It mirrored, in fact, the expression he’d been wearing when Dick had decided to just go for it and kiss him, just to see if _that_ had been what he’d been expecting.

“Here,” Dick said, rolling over and off the other side of the bed to grab some ice packs he’d stashed in his dresser. “You lay down and I’ll get you fixed up.”

Jason twisted to keep an eye on Dick, and yeah, Dick knew that feeling all too well; the slight hammer of your pulse, the inability to let anyone out of your sight, to let your guard down…

He walked the rest of the way around the bed and gently pushed Jason back. His solution was to do more civilian things; or to patrol with a partner more often. Sometimes the partner he chose was—yeah, best not mentioned, really, but sometimes it was the only way to keep from being alone in a world full of people.

He carefully wrapped the knee, checking the swelling and trying, as he had the first time he’d wrapped it, to determine where it had been damaged. No specific spots of swelling were obvious, though the bruising just above the join on the back of his leg seemed to be the firmest, and Jason definitely reacted when he touched it; the slightest inhalation, the tensing of his leg like he was refusing to give in to the impulse to cry out and pull away.

He then pushed Jason until he was laying mostly in the center of his bed and started packing the ice around the joint.

“Here,” he said, handing Jason the tablet and going to get his laptop from its bag in the corner. “You can help me plan.”

“Plan?” Jason asked, blinking several times. Good, Dick thought, the muscle relaxers are kicking in.

The computers weren’t working quite fast enough for his liking, and the images of the crime scene on the web and in the police files didn’t give him as good a picture as actually visiting the crime scene would, and he wanted Jason asleep before he attempted to make a break for it.

He might not believe in killing the scum of the earth, but a good, thorough beating was always on the table and often quite cathartic.

***  
The fourth of, so far, eight crime scenes proved to be paydirt. A button was wedged between two floor panels, and it sparked Dick’s spotty memory from the night he’d gotten his concussion.

“The Fountainhead,” he murmured to himself, prying the button loose. He’d been tailing them; they were supposed to be anarcho-capitalists, but mostly they were just a group of pimps and small-time dealers who’d banded together to keep from getting steamrolled in the city-wide wars that had cropped up at the death of Black Mask.

And now, apparently, they were torturing and murdering street kids just to get his and Jason’s attention—if only they knew exactly what that entailed.

“So you do know who we are, eh, _Nightwing_?” came from behind him. Dick whirled to defend himself, but it was too little, too late.

The gas smelled almost sweet, and it carried him into darkness.

***

Jason woke up alone. He wasn’t really surprised, he thought, but it would have been nice to wake up to Dick Grayson working on their case or even drooling into his chest. He really didn’t like waking up alone in the manor; too many memories.

His knee felt much, much better, but there was a definite tightness gripping his chest that meant the meds that were helping those symptoms were wearing off.

He sighed and reached to the crutches. All he had to wear were a pair of superman pajama pants and whatever clothes Dick had here, or a bathrobe, and he suspected getting dressed was going to be a pain in his ass.

Finally making his way back toward the kitchen, Jason was stubbornly using only one crutch to maneuver and had Bruce’s tablet tucked under the free arm, fully intending to spend dinner doing research.

To that end, he settled in the kitchen in the same chair he’d taken before and had pulled up the feed of #Nighthood posts to check on any updates when Alfred, using his super-freaky butler powers to determine there was someone in his kitchen, joined him.

“I was thinking of making some steaks tonight,” Alfred told him as he opened up the fridge and turned on the broiler. “Will Master Richard be joining us soon?”

“Uh,” Jason said, idly pulling up a video link. He suspected it would just be more badly-edited cell phone camera footage of him and Nightwing spliced together; all the other video links had been. “He wasn’t in his room when I woke up. I figured he was in the Batcave, you know?”

“He is not with Master Bruce at the moment,” Alfred said, and a thin thread of concern had crept into his voice. “I assumed you and he were working together.”

“No, I fell—shit,” Jason said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He tapped the screen to stop playback, turned on the sound, then started the video over.

“So you do know who we are, eh, _Nightwing_?” came a voice tinnily through the tablet’s speaker. Dick, looking particularly vulnerable with that still-colorful bruise on his face, turned to face the speaker, and then….

Then, Dick Grayson, younger than Jason had ever seen him except in pictures, tripped over his own costume and started yelling, holding his suddenly-too big domino against his face with one hand. “You’re going to be so sorry you kidnapped me! You don’t know what’s comin’ do ya? I betcha Batman could kick your butts three times before you even figure out he was attacking you, huh?” The tirade continued even as three masked gang members rushed to put him down with resounding blows, and then the same voice said: “One down, one to go.”

Alfred took the tablet, flipped off the oven, and offered Jason an arm to lean on. Jason, despite all his misgivings, needed to go to the Batcave.

Before they were even fully into the room, Jason said, “You need to find the full, unedited version of this. Dick was saying something right at the beginning, and I’d bet anything you like that he recognized who was in the room with him.”

Bruce didn’t look away from the video looping on his screens with its tiny, sassy Dick Grayson.

“I’m already on it,” he replied testily. “You should be resting.”

As if on cue, Jason had a coughing fit. Alfred, because he wasn’t a hateful bastard like Bruce, held him up through it and didn’t add his voice to Bruce’s.

“Where? In that shrine to wee, dead, Jason Todd, Boy Wonder? Or maybe in Dick’s bed, while he’s being held by sadistic cumnuggets that are going to do nothing but torture him in preparation for a murder that’ll make other new media campaigns look like a little girl’s tea party in comparison?”

“Language,” Bruce cautioned. Jason considered it a victory.

“Speaking of new media, sirs,” Alfred said, bringing up a post on a website that looked vaguely familiar. “There are countless hundreds of people sitting on their computers right now, already investigating this video clip. If you don’t mind, I’ll keep abreast of their findings for now.”

“I’m going to suit up,” Jason said, holding up a hand to forestall any disputes. “You’re going to implant a tracker sub-dermally and I’m going to go stumble into that warehouse. It’s one of the crime scenes, right? Figure out which one while I get some clothes together.”

He didn’t have any of the right clothes, but Alfred produced his helmet from somewhere that he didn’t really want to think about, and there were enough variations on Batman’s and his sidekicks’ costumes in the Batcave to make it easy to cobble something suitably protective together.

He borrowed the most ostentatious of the motorcycles Batman had ready, and he flew out of there before Bruce could think to protest a second time.

It took him almost half an hour to get to the warehouse, and when he arrived, the area was covered in cops. He cursed under his breath until a voice in his ear cut in with “Language,” and then he cursed in his head, because of course they’d given him a helmet that they could listen in on.

“Red Hood!” one of the cops, a detective by the looks of him, came rushing over. Jason’s hands itched for his guns, but he really didn’t want to start shooting cops while Bruce was probably watching through his eye-pieces.

“We weren’t expecting you,” he said, offering a hand to shake. “You’ve been incommunicado since the killings started.”

“Aren’t you supposed to arrest me?” Jason asked, dumbfounded. Bruce chuckled low in Jason’s ear, and the detective shook his head, then nodded.

“Technically, yes. But I stopped caring about masked vigilantes years ago. Most of us have. Come on, I want to show you the crime scene.”

Jason looked around at the swarming cops, then remembered that it wasn’t his bike and figured what the hell. He dismounted, and the second he put weight on his knee, the pain came back with a vengeance.

“Jesus Christ on a motherfucking cracker,” Jason swore, doubling over and pressing the heel of his hand against the offending joint.

The detective was hovering, looking concerned. “Gimme a second,” Jason muttered, and Bruce very tellingly did not whisper “Told you,” into his ear.

“Here,” the detective said, offering his arm. Jason looked around at the cops, but other than two of them quietly collecting money from their fellows, none of them seemed to have noticed.

“You had money on why I was out?” he asked.

“Mm,” the detective said. “It’s a shame; I was going with illness, not injury.”

“If it helps, I’ve got pneumonia too,” Jason said, leaning heavily on the proffered arm. Bruce snorted. “Also, an enormous _pain_ in my _ass_.”

“The knee though,” the detective asked, helping Jason into the warehouse. “Was it these guys?”

“No,” Jason replied.

The detective didn’t press for details.

“Here,” one of the guys watching the crime scene said, and Jason was being handed a bag with Nightwing’s clothes and gear in it. “We don’t touch the masks’ stuff. Is it true you got into a fight with him and these guys took advantage?”

“No,” Jason said.

“Then why were you there that night? You don’t usually patrol that far west.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jason said. He eased to the ground, right where he’d seen Dick crouched, and started to poke around, looking for whatever it was that had sufficiently distracted Dick from his surroundings that a bunch of assholes with some sort of magic gas could get the drop on him.

“Why didn’t it affect anyone else?” he wondered aloud. “Were they wearing gas masks? I only watched it twice.”

“Not that we can tell from the—“ The detective was cut off by one of the other cops running in and brandishing his phone.

“There’s another video!” he said, seemingly excited.

Jason’s stomach dropped. “B?” he asked, and the detective gave him a confused look.

“I’m pulling it up now, Hood.”

Jason leaned over to watch the tiny screen.

Dick was tiny; so tiny it hurt to look at him, and the guys in the frame with him had canes. “That’s consistent with the injuries from the other victims,” the detective said quietly.

Dick, of course, was in full form, sassing the guys between yelps of pain, and managing to keep everything G-rated in a way that Jason had never managed.

“Shut up!” Jason snapped. “He’s _not_ a victim. He’s… Dammit, he slapped me this afternoon for, for being… he’s not a victim!”

Dick was still thoroughly convinced that Batman was going to rescue him and kick everyone up and down the streets until they got to the police station.

“He hit you?” Bruce asked, and Jason ignored him in favor of watching the video play out. It wasn’t any of it surprising, but every time Dick screamed, Jason’s stomach twisted up until he--

He staggered out of the warehouse, knee screaming, and unlatched his helmet just in time to empty the contents of his stomach in the alley next to his bike.

He gasped for breath, for some semblance of balance, and then the detective was patting his back and murmuring reassurances.

Jason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and forced himself to put the helmet back on.

“You aren’t going to find him,” he corrected the detective mid-reassurance. “I am.”

Bruce protested that too, but Jason ignored him yet again and took off down the street on the stolen bike.


	6. Chapter 6

Home was reassuring. Home was a dilapidated tenement in one of the worst parts of town, but it was filled with people Jason sort of trusted, and his things, and it felt safe to him.

He looped around his quarter of town, waiting until he was sure he couldn’t have been followed so far, and then he stashed the bike and the costume in his usual spot, but he couldn’t get to his room the usual way because of his knee, so he limped around to the front entrance.

Half his tenants were in the foyer, and Jason tried to muster a smile.

“If this is about the heat, I will get to work on that,” he said, hobbling through the doors as quickly as he could.

“The heat’s been fixed for almost a week,” Rick said. “Your boyfriend paid for it.”

“My… boyfriend paid for it,” Jason repeated. His knee was killing him, so he leaned against the nearest wall. “Which one?” he asked ingeniously after a few moments.

“Dick,” Joe said with some authority.

“Right, that one,” Jason replied. “Right.”

“You know he had a _butler_ growing up?” Joe said, sounding scandalized and intrigued all at once. “We were just trying to decide if we needed to go rescue you. You weren’t in the hospital when we came to give you your balloons.”

Belatedly, Jason noticed the sad collection of get well soon paraphernalia in the foyer with his tenants.

“How?” Jason asked.

“You called him Grayson,” Ricky said, raising an eyebrow. “There’s at least one Dick Grayson living at Wayne Manor.”

Jason shut his eyes. Dick, Jesus.

“Well, it’s been very gratifying to see all of you,” he said. “But I need to go to bed. And rest. So I can get better. Does anyone have a laptop or something I can use? I want to—“

He hesitated, trying to think of a reason, any reason, to borrow a laptop.

Joe was sending most of the tenants up to bed, so that only Kari and her baby and Rick were left in the foyer.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“He’s not actually—“

“I do understand the point of a secret identity,” she interrupted tartly, which, yeah. Okay, he could pretend that that was the part he was about to protest, not the boyfriend part.

“I’m really fine,” he lied instead.

“You’re not,” Joe said. “You come up with me and Ricky; we’ve got a computer you can use.”

“I’ve got to go out, get working,” Kari said, and Jason and Joe fixed identical looks of disapproval on her. “I do have to feed my kids,” she added testily. Jason decided that he didn’t have the energy to fight with her over this tonight, and he let her go too.

“All right,” Joe said. “Up the stairs. You just let me and Rick do all the work, okay?”

Easier said than done, really, and by the time Jason was all the way up, he was ready to collapse into his bed and wallow in misery for a few days. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time.

Joe and Rick not only had a computer, but also a suspiciously high-end television set. Jason sighed. “Rick,” he started, and Rick turned defensive on him. “My brother gave it to us for our anniversary,” he snapped, and Jason nodded.

“Look,” Joe said. “They’re showing the Red Hood now!”

They really were; it was the dashcam footage of his mad dash from the inside of the warehouse to retch over the side of the stolen motorcycle.

“He got real upset when the second video was released, is all I’m sayin’. I don’t care what the official stance is, or what people think about him. The Red Hood is a decent guy who cares about what’s happening to these kids, and who cares about what happens to his partner.”

Jason stared mutely at the tv screen.

“It looks as if the Red Hood is limping. Did he comment on his injury?”

“Naw,” the officer said. “But he sure was hurting. I figure that’s why he hasn’t already lined these guys’ heads up outside the station.”

Jason wanted to beat his head against a wall.

“If I’d fucking well _known_ ,” he snapped, ready to shoot something. “I would have done something sooner! And now they’ve got…”

He abruptly remembered his audience. Joe looked sympathetic, and Ricky looked… hell, he looked _murderous_.

“He’s a nice guy,” Rick said suddenly. “And they turned him into a baby and they’re torturing him.”

“You’ve never met him,” Jason said.

Ricky slanted a glance at Jason, and Jason resisted the urge to sigh. “Of course not,” he said after a moment. “How crazy do you think it is that Nightwing used to be Robin? I thought there was a Robin at the same time as Nightwing was patrolling, though. Is the title passed on to new kids? How do they get chosen?”

Jason ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I don’t know, Rick,” he said, realizing even as he said it that he was telling the truth. He wondered how Bruce had picked the Drake kid, wondered— “I don’t even know what the hell I can do except sit here and hope my knee heals up before they get around to killing him.”

“I know that place!” Joe said suddenly, excitement in his eyes. “Go pull the video up on the computer, Rick. I know where they’re doing this!”

Jason stood up abruptly, ignoring how his knee felt. “Where is it? Can you—“

“#Nighthood is trending worldwide,” the news anchor was saying. “And many are asking ‘Where is the other half of that duo,’ as another video of a child being tortured gets posted on the hour, as promised.”

“Wait,” Jason said slowly, as the tv transitioned back to the video. Dick was sobbing. “I know that place too.” He did. He’d once slammed a dufflebag full of heads down on the table Dick was strapped to.

“Motherfuckers,” he hissed. “You already made this personal. What the hell are you getting at?”

“They really, really want your attention,” Rick said, and Jason remembered him belatedly, turning his head as if trapped in molasses.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“We know,” Rick said.


	7. Chapter 7

Rather than try the stairs again, Jason used his lines to rappel out the window, which definitely saved his knee. Getting his helmet back on reminded him that Bruce and Alfred had a line on him, and it sounded like Batman was outside, patrolling.

“Where are you?” Jason asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Batman replied.

“I needed to regroup; and I’ve got a tracker in my skin, so it’s not like you couldn’t have found me if you’d wanted to.”

“I’m at the docks. Alfred had a lead.”

“Huh,” Jason said. “Okay. You follow that up. I’m going west-side. I’ve got my own lead.”

“Alfred’s got the best computers on the planet and his own not-inconsiderable intellect to fall back on.”

“Well, obviously that’s a much better plan than following my gut instinct. It’s a good thing the one of us with two good legs is doing that, right?”

There was only silence as a response.

As soon as he was at the old nightclub, he knew it was the right place. There was a new tag on the side of the building for a loose affiliation that was calling itself the Fountainhead, and he wondered what the so-called anarcho-capitalist gang would think about a bunch of guys using their space to torture innocent children.

He knew it almost had to be a trap; he wasn’t stupid. He’d been prepared to step directly into a trap a little under two hours before, and he was still prepared for that. Batman was only about ten minutes away, and he’d come as soon as Jason got shrunk, hopefully. That would make everything easier, and then it would just be on them to live comfortably as children at the mansion until Bruce could synthesize an antidote.

When he snuck in through the back, the whole place was silent and dark around him. He had to suppress his coughing and cling to the walls to keep from making too much noise.

In the end it was pointless, however: they’d known he was coming; they’d wanted him to come.

Bright lights shined into the room and that same voice echoed around. Dick was strapped to a table, struggling still, gagged now.

“It looks like you don’t _need_ to beg for the Red Hood to come collect you. He came on his own. Aren’t you the lucky little boy, Robin?”

“Hi,” Jason said. “You called?”

“Seize him. If he struggles, feel free to whip the boy a little more. I know how you enjoy that.”

Jason put up his hands, “Not struggling. Let the Boy Wonder go, okay?”

Where was the gas, he wondered. When was everything going to shrink back down to simplicity and a faith in Batman so strong that even as the counter ticked to zero, he’d _known_ Batman would be there to protect him?

Why did Dick get to have that, and he didn’t?

“I don’t think so. I can’t help but think; someone so interested in protecting the street kids of Gotham must have a personal stake, right?”

Jason didn’t comment. The gang-members shoved him into a chair and started strapping him in. When he flexed his fists, trying to make sure there’d be slack in the rope, the cane whistled down, closely followed by a muffled cry of pain. Jason shut his eyes and relaxed his fists. They taped his wrists together, and then his legs to the chair.

“We will return in one hour,” the man concluded. Jason flinched a little, and the lights went off.

“Who’s there?” came a little boy’s whisper once everyone had left them alone in the room.

“I’m the Red Hood,” Jason said. “I’m your friend. Or, I will be, I suppose. I’m the reason you’re stuck here.”

“They said you shot a whole bunch of their guys for no reason. I told ‘em being evil goons was a good enough reason, but I don’t really like guns, yanno?”

“I only shot them in the kneecap, and it’s because they were hurting—my friend,” Jason explained. “I’m sorry they’re hurting you.”

“I’m the friend they were hurting, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. Sort of. Yes.”

“Batman’ll be here any second now. If you found me, he’ll find us.”

“I hope so,” Jason heard himself admit. “We should probably try to rescue ourselves first though, right? I mean, you’re a grown-up. You probably don’t want Batman to rescue you. He yells too much.”

“Well, now that you’re here, it should be pretty easy. You’re big; you can take ‘em, right?”

“I dunno, Robin,” Jason said tiredly, trying not to think of how utterly bizarre it was to be talking to a young Dick Grayson and addressing him as _Robin_ without it being an insult or a complaint. “I’m pretty beat up.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“I busted my knee taking out some creep who wanted to kidnap kids on their way home from school, and then I got sick on top of that.”

“Wow. You should probably have stayed home and ate soup. My mama said soup is the best cure if you’re hurting, and she even made dad stay down if he was hurt, especially his knees or wrists.”

Jason had to suppress a snort. “Thanks for that, I guess,” he said.

“What’s your mama like, Red Hood?” Dick asked. His voice was losing its strength and sass. He was almost beginning to sound scared.

“She was a doctor,” Jason said, surprising even himself by talking about the subject. By picking his bio mom to talk about instead of Catherine Todd who’d raised him and loved him. “She saved people’s lives too. Only then, one day, a really, really bad guy hurt her and killed her.”

“Were you there?” Robin asked. “The same thing happened to my mama, and… that’s the reason I haveta be Robin.”

“Yeah, I was there. It’s the reason I have to be the Red Hood, definitely.”

“Sorry ‘bout your mama, Red Hood.”

“It was a long time ago,” Jason said. “Sorry about yours too,” he added, hoping beyond hope that Dick wouldn’t remember this when he got back to normal.

Suddenly, the feeling of tiny hands picking at the tape on his wrists penetrated the fog of pain and self-pity. “What—“ he started to ask, then thought better of it.

“You said we should rescue ourselves,” Dick said, and then Jason’s hands were free. He bent to get at his legs, and with Dick’s help, he was soon free.

“Come on, Robin,” Jason said, pulling himself to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

Robin slipped his tiny hand into Jason’s gloved one, and Jason felt something skip hard in his chest, and he stifled the cough it provoked.

He hoped the motorcycle was still outside, ready for Dick to ride it home.

Once they were out of the room with the cameras (and Jason had pocketed the nearest in hopes of evidence,) Dick staggered. “Hey, little wing,” Jason said, unconsciously using Dick’s nickname for him. “You okay down there?”

“Just fine, Red Hood,” Dick said, but he didn’t sound fine. “They hurt me a little, you know, for their home movies, is all.”

Jason would have let it go, but the next step Dick stumbled again, and Jason had to crouch to look him over. His helmet wasn’t being very helpful, not even when he toggled infrared, which explained Batman’s silence. He wondered if the tracker had been working.

“C’mon,” Jason said, resigned already to his fate. “I’ll carry you.”

“Thanks,” Dick said instead of protesting. “They hit my feet a lot.”

Jason started cursing again, long-winded and as creative as he could manage.

“’S fine, Red Hood,” Dick said, pressing a palm flat to the helmet. “I’ve had way worse.”

Jason just shook his head.

He still had to lean against the walls to get out of the abandoned club; Dick’s added weight was making his knee scream with pain, but one of them was the adult, and it wasn’t Dick.

As soon as they were clear of the building, Jason’s helmet came back online; the sudden burst of light inside the helmet from his night-vision settings blinding him momentarily.

He almost dropped Dick, which was unforgivable.

“Sorry Dickiebird,” Jason said. “Sorry. Hold on a little tighter, ‘kay?”

Dick gasped. “You know my name!” he said accusingly. “How do you know my name?”

“Told you,” Jason said, gritting his teeth and taking a step toward the motorcycle. “I’m your friend. Sort of.”

“I don’t trust you,” Dick said, and it was funny, Jason thought, that knowing his real name meant that he was no longer trustworthy.

“Tough,” Jason said. “I’m all you’ve got.”

“I’m on my way to your location,” Batman said in Jason’s ear. “Hold tight.”

The building chose that moment to explode behind them.

Jason hit the ground, dragging Dick’s tiny body under his own, and tried not to think what any debris from the burning building might do to him, small and barely-clothed.

Something twisted in his knee, and Jason screamed until he was hoarse, and then he passed out.

***

Dick hurt. This was pretty much to be expected after those goons with their canes had started waling on him, focusing on making it so it would be very painful to escape.

He’d known, right away, that he was bait in some sort of complicated trap, but not who it was a trap for, and when he’d seen the Red Hood guy he’d been pretty surprised; he’d assumed it was for Batman, maybe, or one of Batman’s few friends.

The explosion had caught him by surprise. The Red Hood too, or he’d have been a bit faster out the gate, he thought.

The Red Hood was unconscious now; Dick wasn’t sure if it was from some injury from the debris, or some other reason, and while he wasn’t exactly trapped, staying mostly hidden under the Red Hood’s bulk seemed like as good a plan as any while he caught his breath.

After all, he wasn’t going to be going very far, barefoot, on asphalt, with his feet all bruised up by that cane.

He tapped at the Red Hood’s helmet. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry about what I said. I trust you a lot. You can wake up now.”

A voice, completely different from Red Hood’s but still familiar, somehow, crackled from the helmet.

“Robin? I need you to stay still and quiet.”

“Batman?” Dick said, feeling some of the terror that had been creeping through his veins since Red Hood had said he was supposed to be a grown-up ease.

“Quiet,” maybe-Batman said gently, and Dick hushed.

Not even five minutes later, the roar of an engine filled the air, and Dick sucked in a breath and focused on staying as quiet and still as possible. If it was a bad guy, he would maybe think they were dead and that would give them more time for Batman to come. If it was Batman, he’d know that Dick was hiding and being still and quiet, so he wouldn’t miss him.

Someone tried to roll the Red Hood off of him, and he stirred enough to fight the motion, to keep his arms securely wrapped around Dick. Dick was pretty sure that was proof that Red Hood was a friend to grown-up him, since why else would he hold on, even unconscious?

“Robin?” Batman asked quietly. Dick wanted to sob with relief, but he’d spent a lot of time convincing Batman he wasn’t a baby, so he didn’t.

“Yeah,” he whispered instead.

“I’m going to get him into the car. Can you walk?”

“Sorta,” Dick said. “As long as I don’t gotta go very far.”

A gloved hand came down and ruffled his hair. Dick unconsciously reached to check that the ill-fitting domino was still attached. It was, if a little crooked.

He fussed with it one-handed while Batman checked out Red Hood’s injuries.

After another couple of minutes, during which Dick did his best to stay still and quiet, Batman lifted Red Hood up off of him, and Dick did his best to roll to his feet in one smooth movement like he normally did, but his skin was pulling where the welts were coming up, and he was starting to get pretty tired. He always got pretty tired once Batman got there to fix everything.

He figured that was better than getting tired _before_ Batman showed up, at least.

He took little, mincing steps across the asphalt to the car, which was completely unlike, except in the most superficial ways, any car Batman had ever had before. Before he made it halfway, Batman was back and swooping him up into strong arms.

“Come on, Robin,” he said gently. “Let’s go home.”

Once he was in the car, he examined the Red Hood’s now helmet-free visage thoroughly. He looked like he must be nice, he thought, before snuggling down against Red Hood’s warm chest.

“How come he knows who I am?” Dick asked, punctuating the question with a yawn.

“He’s… he’s family,” Batman answered slowly.

“Like a brother? Is he my big brother?”

“Not quite, Robin. If you’re tired, you should sleep. We’re going home now.”

“Patrol’s over?”

“Patrol’s over.”


	8. Chapter 8

When he arrived safely in the Batcave, he stood a moment just looking at the boys. Dick was out like a light, drooling onto Jason’s coat, domino mask all akimbo.

Jason’s hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and he was ghostly pale with a slight hitch in each breath. He really was very sick, and Bruce had no idea how he was going to keep him down long enough to actually get better.

Dick, on the other hand—he remembered Dick at this age; still so certain that Batman could fix all of the small problems in his child’s world, affected by his parents’ murder, but not—

He didn’t resent Bruce yet, still trusted him implicitly. Bruce bent to smooth his hair back, and he mumbled sleepily. The flash of a camera alerted Bruce to Alfred’s presence.

“I was just picking him up,” Bruce said defensively, putting actions to words. He’d been almost hopeful that Jason was right and they’d de-age him too; there had been so much he would have changed—

But that line of thought was profoundly unfair.

He had just gently gotten his hands in under Dick’s ribcage, ready to lift him, when Jason’s arm tightened suddenly around the boy and Bruce had the cold barrel of a gun between his eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” Jason snarled, then blinked slowly.

The gun was lowered, albeit reluctantly. “Bruce?” Jason asked, sounding confused and possibly, if Bruce could trust himself on this, if Bruce wasn’t just wishing, _hoping_ , a little bit remorseful.

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied, smoothing Jason’s hair too. He could feel the heat coming off his skin even through the gloves.

“I didn’t know they’d rigged the place. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that far ahead. I should have gotten him further away, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce said again, and it hurt, because how many times had he stared in the mirror with the exact same train of thought rushing through his head? “He’s safe. You kept him safe.”

The safety clicked audibly when Jason re-engaged it and slid the gun into its holster.

“Yeah, Hood,” Dick said, yawning. “’M safe.” He patted Jason’s chest, hand deftly avoiding the small puddle of drool that had collected there. “Y’did good. Best big brother ever.”

His eyes instantly tracked to Bruce, looking for approval, and Bruce offered him a small, unfamiliar-feeling smile.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Bruce said.

“I’m not going back to my room,” Jason said.

“None of the guest rooms are ready,” Alfred interjected smoothly.

“I moved all of my stuff into Dick’s room this afternoon,” Jason added. “I refuse to wake up in mine again. It’s _weird_.”

“It’s your room,” Bruce said, feeling a little helpless. He’d never intruded on any of his boys’ space, and had no intention of doing so in the future.

“How about, since Hood’s stuff’s all there, he can sleep in grown-up me’s room, and I can sleep in Hood’s room, if Hood doesn’t want it? And then tomorrow, maybe we can clean up one of the guest rooms so Hood can have his own room instead of borrowing mine? Or we can just keep it like tonight.”

All three men stared at the boy.

He crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “ _I_ don’t mind sharing, and probably grown-up me doesn’t _either_ or he wouldn’t have let Hood move his stuff, right? And _Hood_ doesn’t mind, because otherwise we wouldn’t have this conversation at _all_.”

Jason was the first to react beyond surprise, ruffling Dick’s hair and pulling him a little tighter for a hug. “Sounds good, kiddo. You always were the smart one.”

“Obviously not,” Dick replied. “Or I wouldn’t have got captured first, you would have.”

Jason pressed his face against Dick’s hair and sighed. “Come on, Dickiebird. Bedtime for little boys and masked vigilantes.”

Bruce took him then, and he was actually a little surprised that Jason surrendered Dick so easily, given how attached he seemed and how little he trusted Bruce anymore. 

Holding Dick as a little boy again was…

He’d never truly contemplated fatherhood; the boys he’d adopted had been so grown up already, with families and hurts and loves already imprinted on them, that he hadn’t needed to. But this feeling, the feeling of fragility no longer wrapped in bravado and settled so-perfectly against his chest? If he were to admit to missing anything from his boys’ younger years, it was this.

Not, of course, that Jason had surrendered his bravado nearly so easily nor as frequently as Dick (big brother indeed) had, but still. He’d had quiet moments with each of them.

“Where’s my crutch,” Jason asked, and Alfred produced it immediately.

They made a somewhat ridiculous parade through the mansion to the boys’ rooms, and Jason wouldn’t even go into his own room to tuck Dick in, not even when Dick politely requested it. Bruce took a moment to look around; he hadn’t touched anything. Was he so _scarred_ that he couldn’t even look at these last moments of his childhood?

Bruce had done his best to make sure it was happy, hadn’t he?

“You can redecorate if you’d like,” Bruce said as he passed Jason in the hall.

“Why?” Jason asked. When Bruce paused at the door to Dick’s room, Jason scowled at him. “You gonna kiss me goodnight too?”

“If you want,” Bruce said, stifling a sigh. “I’ll even read you a bedtime story.”

Jason shook his head angrily, and while his eyes were hard and cruel, they were also glassy with fever.

“I’m sure Alfred will be up in a moment with your medicine. Sleep well, Jason.”

***

Jason woke the next morning to an 11-year-old cannonballing onto his bed with him. He peeled open his eyes and stared at Dick’s expectant face.

“Alfred says it’s time for you to take your medicine again,” Dick said, grimacing dramatically. “If you want, I can hold your hand so it’s not so bad?”

Jason wriggled around until he was sitting up. Dick did a somersault from the bed to the floor where he promptly started going through his things. Part of Jason wanted to stop him, because it seemed wrong, somehow, but didn’t because they were, technically, Dick’s things.

“Awesome,” Dick said. “I still like pirates!” He brandished some comics in Jason’s direction, but he didn’t require Jason’s comment, apparently, because he tucked them away again almost immediately, moving on to the next new thing.

Things proceeded in that vein for several minutes, until Alfred came down the hall holding a tray.

“I should have suspected, Master Richard,” he said, smiling tolerantly at the boy. “I ask you to get out the silverware, and the moment my back is turned, the silverware is out, but the boy is gone.”

“Aww, Alfred, I wanted to see if Red Hood was awake!”

“Jason,” Jason corrected. Dick cocked his head.

“I like it,” he said. “If I’m a Dickiebird, you’re a Jaybird, which has the benefit of being a real thing, too.”

Alfred wasn’t subtle about the laugh he was suppressing, so Jason scowled at him, the traitor.

“I’ve brought lunch, Master Jason, and your medicine. Please set a good example for our young charge and take it all, sir.”

“That’s what you always tell Bruce, Alfred,” Dick said, frowning.

“And it’s as true for Jason as it is for Bruce,” Alfred replied. “Why don’t you go find a quiet activity for the two of you to occupy your afternoon while Jason eats?”

“I promised I’d hold his hand for his medicine,” Dick explained staunchly, moving across the room in an eyeblink to tuck his tiny hand in Jason’s. Jason curled his fingers around it, staring at where they were joined incredulously. Dick, small or not, was exactly the same. Jason felt something painful burn through him at that knowledge—he knew there was no way that was true of him.

“Thanks, Dick,” he said. Dick turned a brilliant smile on him, and it was funny, because with a young, earnest Dick holding his hand, Jason wanted nothing more than to sit down and actually talk with his grown counterpart.

The medicine wasn’t all that bad, and once it was all swallowed, Alfred chased Dick out and enjoined Jason to eat.

Jason did, because he was hungry.

Dick returned once Alfred had cleared the tray, and he was just as exuberant in his entrance this time.

“Your room is _awesome_ ,” Dick said. “You have _so_ many books. Can we read a book? Do you know why my room doesn’t have any books?”

“You probably have them in your apartment,” Jason said.

“Why do I live in an apartment?” Dick asked, scrunching up his nose. “That seems stupid.”

“Because it’s easier than driving into Gotham for patrols, I suspect,” Jason said, hoping that Dick would stop playing 20 questions so he didn’t have to come up with not-untrue responses that wouldn’t upset him.

“Can we read? Do you still like to read?”

“We can read,” Jason said. “I’ve got a cough though, sorry.”

“’S okay. I picked this one. It says it’s my favorite, see?” He brandished the book that had been in Jason’s nightstand, prying open the cover to show the dedication: ‘Little Wing; one of my favorites, hope you enjoy, - D.’

Jason managed to draw a smile from somewhere in his chest. “Why don’t you start? We can trade off reading chapters, okay?”


	9. Chapter 9

Dinner was a fraught affair. It started with Dick, who’d insisted on holding Jason’s hand for his medicine again, asking Bruce if there was going to be patrol that night.

“Not for you, Dickiebird,” Jason said, squeezing his hand. “Leave it to me and B, right?”

“You’re sitting this one out, Jason,” Bruce said instantly.

“Like hell I am,” he snapped back. “I’m an adult—I get to decide when I go out.”

“Your knee can’t handle it, Jason.”

“You could maybe hit people with the crutch?” Dick suggested. “But it’d be hard to be quiet when Batman says to, probably.”

“You’re not going after these creeps without backup!” Jason said, ignoring Dick.

“I’ll have backup,” Bruce said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jason said, tossing his napkin down on his still-full plate and standing up. “I have a bum knee; he was subjected to _falanga_ by a bunch of pimps and drug dealers _on camera_ last night.”

“I’m fine,” Dick said stoutly. “My feet only hurt a tiny little bit now.”

“This is crazy!” Jason said. “If he’s going out, I’m going out.”

“How?” Bruce said quietly.

Jason balked at that. “You really gonna have Alfie lock me in my own bedroom like I’m still 15?” he snarled, fingers clenched so tightly around the back of his chair that his knuckles were white.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Bruce said.

“Right,” Jason said quietly. “I am, aren’t I? You have your Robin back. Little Dickie, ready to live up to the Great Bruce Wayne’s every standard and ideal. It must be fantastic to be Bruce Wayne tonight.”

He turned to go, grabbing the crutch from where it was leaning against the wall. He paused at the threshold to the dining room, and without turning his head, said, “Did you ever give either of us a choice? A _real_ choice?”

He didn’t wait for a response, but his progress on the crutch was slow enough that he could hear, clearly, Dick say, “Bruce, I think you hurt his feelings. You should probably say sorry. If he wants to be Robin, I don’t mind. I can be something else. Maybe the Red Hood, if he’s Robin?”

Jason hated himself with a sudden abrupt ferocity that gave him the energy to hurry up the stairs to the gabled attic and climb out onto the roof before he remembered how much his knee _hurt_.

He bit his lip and buried his face in his hands, because how stupid was it to be jealous of a little boy? How stupid, really, was it to be jealous of _Dick_? Dick who would give Jason anything he asked for—he would even share his Nightwing identity, so long as Jason didn’t kill while using it.

That was the clincher; the truth Jason couldn’t escape no matter what: Dick wasn’t the problem. Jason was. Jason _always had been_.

***

“They will be fine, you know,” Alfred said from just inside the window. It had started raining, which did not improve the night at all, and had Jason drenched and the roof much more slippery.

“They haven’t left yet,” Jason replied. He’d been waiting for that so he could come back inside, maybe even leave.

“Master Richard was very excited about the modifications to the costume,” Alfred said. “You should come inside; they’ll be leaving presently and you haven’t eaten your dinner.”

“Timothy's costume, you mean.”

“It is an improvement over the original,” Alfred said mildly. Jason snorted. Alfred didn’t leave, so Jason sighed and climbed with painstaking care back into the house.

“How’d you find me?”

“I’ve kept up with you for years,” Alfred said in tones of blatant disapproval. “It wasn’t a guess so much as a certainty that you’d have made your way to the roof. You always go out there when you feel guilty over something.”

Jason hunched his shoulders up and ducked his head. “I’m not feeling guilty,” he protested.

“Of course you aren’t. We’ll finish dinner and then retire to the Batcave to supervise the others.”

Jason felt something unclench in his chest at that. “Yeah, okay,” he said.

“It must be difficult to be so far away while he patrols,” Alfred said. “It’s been almost three months, hasn’t it?”

Jason opened his mouth to protest, but Alfred beat him to it. “I do know how to set up a tracking algorithm, sir.”

It was funny how the way Alfred called him Master Jason and sir always seemed to be a stand in for ‘you idiotic child.’ Funny, yet reassuring.

“Do they—“ he stopped mid-sentence. Of course _Dick_ didn’t know, he was 11. 

“I didn’t see why they should be informed,” Alfred said. “You always did prefer to take your own time about things.”

Jason could feel heat coloring his cheeks at that. “I—he’s got a lot of enemies. More than me, and I—“

“He’s been Nightwing far longer than you’ve been Red Hood,” Alfred agreed.

“Yeah…”

Something clicked then, and his fingers itched to write out some of the idea like he preferred to do, so he said, “Can we make this a working dinner? I’ve just had a thought.”

“That _was_ the plan,” Alfred said, but without that condemning ‘sir’ appended, which was nice.

Jason’s brain waited until his mouth was completely full before it rounded up his thoughts enough to verbalize them. “They were already after Dick!” he said. “It’s really weird; okay, almost everyone has associated the Jason Alvarez alias with the Red Hood, because… well, the big thing is that I don’t care. And Jason Todd is dead so it’s not like it matters, right? But anyway, it was never about me.”

Alfred nodded and didn’t comment about the bits of potato Jason was spraying on his pad of paper which was covered mostly with doodles and one rather impressive sketch of a fire escape. Jason fiddled with the lines a bit, frowning. The perspective was a bit hinky, but he was pretty pleased with the overall effect.

In the corner, he’d outlined the Fountainhead tag; they’d been tagging a wall when Dick had—

“It’s this gang,” Jason added. “And they wanted Nightwing to fight them that night; they waited til they knew he was coming to start tagging on that roof, and they were _ready_. I got in the way, I made it personal on my end. But they never really cared about me until then. I never thought about how they weren’t working in any other neighborhoods, just Dick’s, because I was doing double-patrols to keep an eye on him, right?”

“But why them,” Alfred asked, tapping the tag on the corner of the page.

“I don’t know. They shouldn’t be a threat at all! They’re just some gang that banded together after—after the last drug war and subsequent power vacuum. They aren’t on _anyone’s_ radar; they don’t deal in kids—“ Jason grimaced. “They _didn’t_ deal in kids, at least, so I didn’t care, and they weren’t mugging or raping or murdering actively while either Nightwing or Batman were on patrol, and they aren’t very big, so neither of them would have really registered the threat.”

 _”I need you to wait in the car, Robin,”_ filtered into the room then, and Jason looked up, hindbrain responding the Batman-ordering-Robin tone and getting confused because what car?

 _”But Hood said you need backup!”_ Robin protested, his voice so young and earnest that Jason winced. He’d never been a Robin as young as this, but still, he knew he’d sounded just like that when he was young.

_”Which you will be; wait in the car and don’t come unless I say.”_

Jason felt the tension in his shoulders unknot slightly at that.

“He never meant for either of you to be in danger,” Alfred said gently.

“I know that!” Jason snapped. “I do, I just…” he sighed.

Alfred saved him from having to finish that thought by flipping on some screens and setting them to display Batman’s and Robin’s views.

“Did you hook the helmet up too?” Jason asked, because he’d wondered.

“It’s a completely new helmet,” Alfred said. “Of course I put it on the network.”

Jason clenched his fists, furious. To assume that he’d… and just as quickly, he lost his anger. Assume that he’d come back? He was pretty sure that he _had_ returned—prodigal son, slaughter the fatted calf and shower him with gold, only of course he didn’t get that, that was reserved for Dick, for the good one, and Jason didn’t know why that still rankled, it wasn’t like he thought Dick didn’t deserve everything he got that Jason didn’t, but still.

Jason still wondered, quiet and mean and petty, if Dick wouldn’t have resorted to killing if he’d come back from the dead to his murderer still breathing. Of course, Dick’s murderer wouldn’t still be breathing, would he?

 _“Alfred, are you getting this?”_ Batman asked. _”They cleared it after the place went up.”_

“So it was a fail-safe, not their plan?” Jason asked. “Makes me wonder what I did that set it off?”

_”Could be they were watching and blew it when they realized you’d escaped.”_

“Hood is of the opinion that they were after Nightwing explicitly.”

 _”And the Red Hood is easier to smoke out that Nightwing,”_ Batman said. _”Makes sense. Any ideas why?”_

“The usua-DOWN,” Jason snapped, and Batman hit the deck just before the black-clad figure he’d barely seen at the periphery of the screen started firing.

 _”What’s wrong?”_ Dick demanded. _”You need backup, don’t you?”_

“No!” Three voices echoed at once. Jason continued, because he’d hated being shut down like that for no real reason. “He’s fine, and it’s only one guy. We’ll keep you in reserve for when we need the big guns, got it?”

 _”Fine,”_ Dick said, sounding unappeased, but his feed continued to show the interior of the Batmobile.

Batman quickly disabled the gunman and secured him with zip ties.

 _”Why are you after Nightwing?”_ Batman demanded in a low growl.

“Don’t bother,” Jason said. “I know him; he’s just a hired gun. He won’t know anything.”

 _”You’re sure, Hood?”_ Batman asked, and it was suppressed aggression in his voice, not doubt, which made Jason feel a little better about being questioned.

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s greedy but not particularly smart.”

Batman shoved the guy down unceremoniously.

There was nothing of use at the warehouse, and when Jason finally remembered the camera he’d snagged, Alfred had assured him that they were already examining it for any data on the gang who’d down this there was to be found.

 _”We’re coming back in; the rest of the city can handle itself for tonight,”_ Batman said, and Dick made a noise of protest at that.

“Cool, then me and Robin can finish our book,” Jason said, trying for an upbeat tone of voice.

 _”No we won’t,”_ Dick said. _”You’ll be too busy_ investigating _to spend any time with me.”_

Jason sat back in his chair and stared through Batman’s cowl at the suddenly furious little boy. _”I thought you’d be_ my _friend, not_ Batman’s _, coz you said, but you’re a liar! You don’t even care about me, all you care about is Batman. It’s not_ fair!”

Jason wanted to reach out to him, to wrap his fingers around his tiny hand and tell him of course he’d read with him, all the way until sun-up if Dick didn’t fall asleep, but the boy wasn’t near enough to touch, and the words wouldn’t trek their way past his lips, and he was struck with another desire, as strong as the first time, to speak with Dick-as-he-was about all of this.

 _”Robin,”_ Batman said, sounding just as lost as Jason felt then.

 _”No!”_ Dick snapped. 

Alfred toggled the mute. “I think perhaps it would be best to give his temper time to cool,” he said gently.

“No,” Jason said. “We’re going to read our book. We’ll read a hundred books if that’s what he wants.”

Alfred sighed, and while they went back to examining the body of evidence they’d collected so far, nothing new had come of it by the time Batman and Robin had made their way home.

***

Bruce… Bruce didn’t know what he was doing. It pained him to admit it, even in the quiet of his own mind, but, he’d raised two boys from childhood to adulthood—or near enough, and he still felt blatantly unequipped for this.

Dick as he was at eleven was not quite right. Bruce had no idea if it was all in his head as a result the fond, warm glow of nostalgia, or if there was something actually off about him, and Jason…

Jason. Jason was a problem, he thought, because it pleased Jason to be a problem.

When Alfred had finally convinced him to go up to bed, when the weak sunlight was already filtering in from the east, he felt heavy and useless and decided to check on the boys.

Dick had apologized rather pointedly for hurting Jason’s feelings, and Jason had wielded the crutch with one arm and taken Dick’s hand, infinitely gently, in his other, and said he had no idea what his Dickiebird was talking about and led him out of the Batcave.

Bruce had simply watched them go and felt badly for the amount of relief he felt at having both of them occupied and not in his sight.

Alfred gave him a knowing look, but he hadn’t commented, simply shared the theory Jason had come up with about this Fountainhead gang.

Bruce had already decided to trust Jason as if he were Jason, not the Red Hood, but it was still a little hard to consider his eyewitness testimony on the tagging on the side of the warehouse as credible. He’d been in pain, and being rash, and he’d been instantly seen and caught.

It was, Bruce argued, entirely possible that there was some more subtle force at work, perhaps a rival gang who wanted to discredit these Fountainhead people?

Alfred had snorted, and Bruce had relented, and they’d worked on ways of getting the group to show their hand.

The only option they could come up with was infinitely unpalatable, and Bruce had tabled the discussion, and now, now he needed to check on the boys.

Dick was not in Jason’s room; the bed was unmade and there was stuff all over the floor, which was typical of any room a younger Dick had spent any time in; his family’s itinerant lifestyle had meant that books growing up were precious and rarely kept longer than the time it took for everyone to page through them, which had led Dick to think that having his own library was an unheard-of luxury worth expanding on.

Jason had tended to favor books specifically, and his room had always been a mess of things to read and half-written, tossed aside homework assignments, Bruce remembered. 

The rivalry with Dick had been a very real thing; though, Bruce thought with a soft smile, that hadn’t stopped Dick from continually giving him books.

He moved on to Dick’s room, and it was much tidier. He could see the spot that Jason had claimed as his own; a chair in the corner had his clothes folded neatly on it, and there was a laptop computer and the brown paper bag of his cut up clothes from the hospital. The medicines were lined up neatly on top of Dick’s dresser, Dick’s own things (a comb, a spare domino mask, and three books,) stacked carefully to the side.

The bed contained the two boys, two books, and a tablet. Bruce smiled at the sight; Dick was sleeping with a book pressed firmly against his chest, and Bruce recognized the cover of a book he liked a great deal, though he was pretty sure it hadn’t even been written yet when Dick had been eleven, and that….

That led to Jason, who had one arm wrapped firmly around Dick. If he had awakened when Bruce had opened the door, he showed no signs of it.

The constant, wearing anger in his face had faded with sleep, and his breathing was smoother than it had been yesterday, which let something ease in Bruce’s own chest. He was getting better, despite his best efforts not to. Good.

He’d always known Jason was stubborn, more stubborn than Dick, certainly; perhaps even as mule-headed as he himself was, and these last few days had proved that beyond doubt.

Bruce couldn’t help himself; he entered the room and fussed over them the way he’d only ever been able to while they were sleeping. He tugged the books and tablet away and set them on the nightstand, then he pulled the covers up over them both.

He hesitated a moment before giving in to his baser needs and smoothing two heads of dark hair back, the motion soothing him more than he thought it was supposed to.

After a few moments of this… rather ridiculous petting, Jason’s eyes opened to sleepy slits.

“Bruce?” he asked, shifting a little and then frowning at the fact that Dick was in his arms, preventing him from greater movement. “’S late. Let the kid sleep, okay? Patrol later.”

Bruce wanted to protest that assumption, but he didn’t. He just shifted so that he was sitting at the edge of the bed.

“No patrol until we figure this out,” he corrected. He didn’t say anything like ‘you were right,’ because Jason wasn’t, not really, but neither of the boys were really up to being out on the street at the moment, and with Dick’s aberrant behavior this evening, he needed to rerun the scans to see if he’d missed something.

“mm” was Jason’s only response, and he butted his head, catlike, against Bruce’s hand, so Bruce resumed the soft stroking. It really was making him feel better.


	10. Chapter 10

Dick woke up.

He was pretty sure it was weird for him to only sleep a couple of hours and then wake up feeling like he’d slept for two nights straight, but he didn’t want to have to submit himself to more of the scans again like yesterday morning when he’d woken up.

This morning, he was feeling a little too warm too, but he was also surrounded by the bulky figures of adults. Jason, he knew, was the one he’d been using as a full-body pillow, and it only took a very little squirming to see enough of the other to identify it as Bruce.

Huh, and he’d been thinking the two of them were only happy when they were fighting like cats and dogs. Well! Dick needed to get up, because he was feeling itchy, which meant he needed to go bounce around the gym until he was calm enough to handle civilized company, as Alfred put it.

Alfred also said that little boys _ought_ to be uncivilized at least twice a day, so he didn’t think it was really a bad thing.

He hadn’t, however, been training with Batman for over a year to no effect; it was easy enough to slip out of the bed without making either of the adults stir.

He hesitated in the doorway, staring at the two of them. They looked really tired, in their own ways. Dick was worried that maybe grown-up him wasn’t using any of his tricks for making sure Bruce got enough sleep; then he thought maybe demanding bedtime stories and “falling asleep” on chests wasn’t really something grownups could do.

He tried picturing Jason doing that, since he didn’t really know what grown-up him looked like, but ran into problems picturing him and Bruce spending more than thirty seconds in the same room without Jason taking offense at something Bruce said and getting so angry he was shaking and hurt looking.

In the hall, he saw Alfred who was carrying a tablet-thing like Jason had.

“They’re sleeping,” he said as quietly as possible. “I’ma go play on the trapeze like yesterday, kay?”

“They’re sleeping,” Alfred repeated, frowning a little. “Make sure that the alarms are all set, and that will be fine. Breakfast will be ready whenever you are.”

“Kay, Alfred, thanks,” Dick said, ducking past him and speeding down the hall.

***

Jason woke slowly and comfortable; warm and feeling better in the way you only appreciate when your fever has broken in the night. He stretched and realized he wasn’t alone in the bed.

He managed to be hopeful when he opened his eyes; maybe Dick had re-aged during the night. 

Instead, well—

“Bruce?” he asked.

He looked awfully uncomfortable, twisted up with his head mostly against the headboard and still wearing half of the Batman suit.

“Jesus,” Jason said. “What the hell were you doing patrolling if you were tired enough to sleep like that?”

Bruce didn’t answer. Jason sighed and pulled himself out of the bed. The crutch was still necessary, even with his fever finally broken. He knew better than to ignore the pills Alfred had let him take responsibility for, though, so he obediently took each of them with a grimace.

He looked back at Bruce on the bed, and thought—Dick wouldn’t like leaving him like that.

Since it was Dick’s bed, he spent a few painstaking minutes pulling Bruce down and pushing him towards the middle of the bed. He even put the covers over him, since it was, after all, October.

He grabbed Dick’s tablet off the nightstand and pulled on clean clothes after that, and Bruce still hadn’t stirred. Jason shrugged internally and decided to go in search of food.

Dick was in the kitchen, wolfing down what appeared to be half the pantry. Alfred had a concerned frown forming between his brows, and Jason wondered what it meant. He watched Dick slather jam all over a slice of toast and frowned himself when he shoved the whole slice into his mouth and barely chewed before swallowing.

“Hungry?” he asked mildly, taking his seat at the table.

“Gosh, am I ever!” Dick exclaimed, repeated the slather and cram as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

Jason looked at Alfred. Alfred looked at Dick, and Jason took the oatmeal he was offered with a quiet sense of perplexity.

By the time he finished his oatmeal (prepared perfectly, honestly, Alfred was his very favorite,) Dick had gone through two more plates.

“Where you putting it all, Little Dickiebird?” Jason asked slowly.

Dick looked up at him and then back at the plate. “Sorry,” he said.

Jason reached instinctively for his hand. “Hey, no, no saying sorry to me, kay? I’m just a little worried about the caloric intake here. Aren’t you, a little?”

Dick looked back up at Jason, and his eyes were bright, nostrils flaring. Jason was worried he’d made the kid angry, but no—

“You have to scan me again; you have to! I don’t feel right, none of it’s right!”

Jason immediately stood up and leaned in to offer the boy a hug, and Dick clung to him so he ended up hauling him into his arms and reaching blindly for his crutch for support and balance.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Jason said, even as he felt like a total heel because how the hell could he promise that? He had no idea whether it would be fine or not, he didn’t even know what was _wrong_. “Come on Alfred; to the Batcave!”

Dick didn’t snicker, as Jason had hoped, and Alfred’s concerned frown, if anything, wrinkled up a little more.

Maneuvering with a bum knee, a crutch, and a frightened child was more difficult than Jason had thought it would be.

***

The tests were inconclusive; the _damned_ tests were _inconclusive_. Bruce was on the verge of pacing, but the presence of a sleeping Jason and a fever-eyed young Dick were enough to keep him from it. Alfred cleared his throat and offered him a tray with coffee.

"If I may..." he said, which caused Bruce to furrow a frustrated brow in dismay. Alfred was rarely timid unless he knew what he was going to say would upset Bruce.

"Yeah?" he said. It came out like more of a grunt, and Dick made a show of turning the page in his book.

"If our tests are inconclusive, it may be that the only people who can solve our problem are the people who caused our problem in the first place."

Bruce stared at him. Dick set down his book and dragged Jason's arm tighter around his chest; scant protection, really. "I really don't wanna," Dick said. "Can't you just, I dunno, make me need to eat less and sleep more? I don't mind being a kid, really."

Bruce nodded. "It's what we're working on, Dick. Look, sleeping like that can't be good for Jason. Why don't you take him upstairs and tuck him in? He's still not up to par and sleep will do him some good. Real sleep."

Dick snorted. "You too, you know," he said, but he'd already grasped the tensions between Bruce and Jason, so he set about waking up his erstwhile protector without letting on that everything was Bruce's idea.

Once they were safely bundled up the stairs, Dick's little-boy's voice a cajoling counterpoint to a much gruffer and more tired Jason, Alfred set down his tray.

“You’re right, Alfred,” Bruce said. “The only people who could possibly help him are the ones who are after him.”

"Am I correct in assuming, sir, that you have a plan?"

"Yes," Bruce said. "And I don't like it."

The expression on Alfred’s face was grimly determined. “But it is Master Richard,” he said encouragingly. “And I’ve already set up the contingencies; your latest scandal shall have the lawn covered in reporters in no time at all. Master Jason will be none the wiser.”

“Am I-- are we absolutely certain he won’t-- that DIck will be safe?”

Alfred smiled wanly at him. “That Master Richard will come to no harm in Jason’s hands is the _only_ thing I am certain of here.”

They'd save Dick, even if the plan was terrible.

***

Jason woke up in Dick's room with Dick still cuddled against his chest and Alfred standing in the doorway looking exhausted and concerned, so about how Jason felt.

"Hey," he said. Dick didn't even stir. He must have been actually asleep then, which, according to Dick, was rare right now. His arms tightened around Dick unconsciously, and when he sat up, he brought the small body with him.

"You need to leave. There's an excess of press scrutiny on the mansion today, and the presence of young Master Richard would not be easily explained."

"Not to mention myself, right? Whatever. We'll leave out the Cave entrance as soon as possible. I just need my--"

"Your things are waiting for you near your preferred motorcycle," Alfred said curtly, and Jason felt a wave of resentment surge up in him. He forced the emotions down behind a cruel smile and a shrug, because they might be getting rid of him but they were letting him keep Dick.

For now.

And he had some ideas on how to get Dick back to healthy his own self. Maybe not adult, but _healthy_ , which was better than anyone else could seem to figure out right this second.

***

Walking back into his own apartment building felt strange this time. He was pretty sure it was because Dick was clinging to his hand.

"You live here?" Dick asked. "I bet if you wanted you could live at the mansion all the time. I bet Alfred would like that."

"I bet he would too," Jason allowed. "I don't think Bruce would, so much. Besides, even you don't live at the mansion anymore."

"Do I live here then?"

"I--" What? "What?"

"Do I live here? Are we neighbors? Are we married?"

"What?" Jason said again, staring down at Dick's dark head and feeling helpless.

"Oh, wow," Kari said, coming out with her horde. "Is this your nephew or something? He's perfect! No, honey, you're not married to Jason. Wow! Here I was hoping they grew out of this sort of questioning by the time they were... what is he, seven? Eight?"

"I'm eleven! I'll be twelve in a couple months."

Jason tried to smile for Kari, and it must have looked utterly pitiable.

"Oh, shit. C'mon, sweetie. Your Uncle Jason is pretty sick, and I bet you're hungry, gawd, you're so small, so why don't you help me get my kids off to school and then I'll cook you up some breakfast."

Jason wanted to protest, but Dick didn't give him a chance. "I'm Thomas," he said, surprising Jason into blinking. "Jason definitely needs his beauty sleep. Also I am _always_ hungry."

"Oh," Kari said again. "Aren't you just the sweetest thing."

"Are you married to Uncle Jason?" Dick asked ingeniously. Jason decided to leave, because he absolutely couldn't handle this. Also, he had some calls to make.

***

“I thought you said he wasn’t going to be a problem anymore, daughter,” came a furious low voice from the other side of the library. _He_ wasn’t supposed to be here, so he darted around behind the last row of shelves and pulled himself to the top, belly flat against the dusty surface. 

“He isn’t,” his mother said gently. “He’s simply--”

“I thought you said he’d closed all lines of communication, and that you had rectified your _mistake_ , daughter,” the furious voice said.

“Father, I--”

The sound of flesh meeting flesh, and _he_ flinched, because a casual backhand from his grandfather was never pleasant. His mother was strong, though, and worthy. She didn’t cry out.

“He is a loose end, and that cannot be allowed.”

“He’s just-- he’s a boy,” his mother whispered, and it carried, carried like a dart to prick _his_ skin, but he was strong enough to ignore pain himself, now. He was old enough to prove himself worthy of learning his father’s name, even if the time was not yet right to seek him out.

“I’m dispatching six men to take care of this,” his grandfather said. “Since you cannot be trusted with this task, three of those you trust will be sent in your stead.”

_He_ muffled his noise of surprise into his fist. His mother did not fare so well. Her gasp echoed through the library, and the subsequent slamming of the door behind his grandfather had him rolling down off the shelves and leaving through the crawlspace behind the hearth.

He made it to his room unseen, and where normally there would be a satisfied feeling of pride at that, here he felt-- empty. Jason had contacted them, but why? What could possibly have brought him so low as to risk his grandfather’s attention?

He pried loose a stone in the moulding next to his own fireplace, and withdrew three passports, including an American one for an identity his mother had not supplied him, and wads of euros and three credit cards issued in the passports' identities' parents names.

It was time to leave, to go to Gotham. Jason _needed_ him, because whatever danger he turned out to be in, he’d just brought himself more; because his grandfather was about to shift the delicate balance between his supporters and his mother’s supporters, and…

And he wasn’t susceptible to such a weakness as _fear_ , but he’d much prefer to be fighting at Jason’s side again, as his brother, than a pawn in his mother’s and grandfather’s scheming and infighting, as their heir.

Jason needed him, he decided, and he left.


	11. Chapter 11

There were some very good reasons Jason was bringing Dick along to his meet with Talia’s people. He wasn’t sure, however, if they were good _enough_ , since Dick was alternately as energetic as a puppy and clingy and feverish, and Jason couldn’t predict, minute to minute, which one he’d be next.

The thing about it was that he didn’t trust anyone in his building to _not_ mention the bright-eyed boy Jason had suddenly gained guardianship of, and just because he was hard on child traffickers didn’t mean that there were none in Gotham anymore, and there were people who were provably both out to get him and perfectly willing to grab children on their way to do so.

“Robin, please,” Jason said, pressing a palm flat to Dick’s hair. He was more armed than usual, tonight, because Talia _would_ try to double cross him, but he was counting on her desire to screw and/or screw over Bruce to make sure she didn’t try too hard.

“Sorry, Hood,” Dick said, leaning up into the touch like a cat for a moment before suddenly darting across the alley and up a fire escape. It barely shifted under his slight weight, and Jason resisted the urge to sigh long-sufferingly.

The meet went south before it even began.

The guys who entered the alley weren’t anyone Talia would send to _speak_ on her behalf, and about half of them weren’t even Talia’s guys, and they immediately pulled out handguns and started firing wildly.

“Robin!” he snapped. “Stay high!”

“Gotcha, Hood!” a cheerful voice chimed, and Jason ducked in low, pulling out his own handguns.

“I’m coming down,” a less cheerful and far less familiar voice argued. “Screw you, Red Hood, you don’t get to-- ooph!”

Jason didn’t have time to spare on looking for the source of the other voice, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like whoever it was when he did find out, and then a scimitar slashed through one of the goons quite cleanly.

“You are a complete idiot,” a _very_ familiar voice gritted out, and Jason’s guts froze.

He snarled silently and forgot about not-killing, because there was an eleven year old on the roof and a nine year old trying to protect him and these goons? They weren’t going to touch those children.

Once the bodies had all hit the pavement, Jason forced himself to find that calm place as Damian emerged from the shadows, a leering grin twisting his lips and blood smeared across his skin. Dick dropped back down from his fire escape, and a fourth figure-- Ah. Robin. resolved itself.

“Wow,” Timothy Drake said, staring not at Jason but at Damian al Ghul. “That was unnecessarily messy. I should--”

“Don’t even think about calling this in,” Jason said, leveling his sights on Tim.

Damian shook out his muscles and glanced at the blade of his sword. Jason shook his head minutely.

“Who are they, Hood?” Dick asked, ignoring the carnage in a way that Jason might say was almost polite.

“That’s a good question, Hood,” Tim said, the slightest intonation on the name meant to either be insulting or simply querying. Jason had never tried to puzzle Tim out properly, as the mere thought of him was enough to send him into an incognizant rage for several minutes. Actually, he was handling this confrontation better than he’d have given himself credit for even that morning.

“Robin, meet Robin, and … “ Jason had no idea what to call Damian, because he had a feeling that going with “al Ghul” would be recipe for disaster, and the other option, well.

“I’m Ibn al Xu'ffasch,” he said with a smug little scoff and a flourishing bow. “And you are the imposter,” he added. “But this--”

“Is why I called your mother,” Jason said, and he interposed his body between Damian and Dick, holding out a hand for the blade. Damian surrendered it easily, circling around Jason to stare at Dick.

“You risked the relative safety you had gained by pretending you had never heard of my family,” Damian said. “And now I’ve had to kill three of Mother’s favorites,” Jason shuddered, and Damian’s eyes flicked up to him briefly before he continued, “and three of Grandfather’s, which will no doubt upset their detente, all for a _child_?”

“You’re a child too,” Dick pointed out. “I’m Robin. That sounds sort of like Ibn, doesn’t it? Are you a villain? You aren’t wearing a mask.”

“Yes,” Damian said. “I need no mask.”

Dick looked up at Jason then, and his brow was furrowed, and Jason wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have let Damian keep the sword; but Dick is everything Batman wanted for a son, so he takes Jason’s nod as affirmation, then spits in his palm and offers it to Damian.

“Then we’ll have to make a truce,” Dick said gravely.

“What are you doing.” Damian asked in the way Jason had _tried_ to train out of him; no lilt on the end to betray the weakness of curiosity.

“It’s a truce. If you spit and shake, you _really_ mean it. Like a promise only better.”

Damian eyed Dick’s hand with an uncertain wariness, but Dick never wavered, and his eyes behind his domino were nothing but expectant hope.

Jason held his breath, but at last, Daman brought his hand to his mouth, spit in it, and took Dick’s. “A truce, then, Robin.”

“Who _are_ these kids?” Tim demanded, and Jason turned to see his hands hovering near his utility belt.

“If you call Batman,” Jason said with a calm he decidedly did not feel, “I will shoot you in the kneecaps.”

“You won’t,” Tim replied reasonably. “I’m a good guy.”

“Do _not_ try my patience in this,” Jason hissed, and Damian straightened his spine and shoved Dick behind him. Apparently he took his spit-promises very seriously.

Jason was abruptly possessed of a desire to laugh hysterically. He suppressed it, but only just.

“We need to leave,” Damian said. “This will attract attention, no matter who you call.”

Dick slipped a hand into Jason’s free one, and Jason handed Damian back his sword.

“It’s a bit gauche, really, acquiring your own Robin. Robins?”

“He’s not mine,” Jason said. 

“So you found a wayward boy dressed as Robin and let him watch you massacre an alley full of guys who may or may not have been villains?”

“Do you not get the internet?” Jason asked. “Seriously?”

Tim blinked at him, and Jason rolled his shoulders. 

“What.”

“I’ll let you watch it when we get someplace safe.”

“And you’re bringing the not-Robins with us?”

“Would you suggest I leave them?” Jason demanded, wheeling on Tim and feeling the rage overwhelm his senses. It was Dick’s hand in his that stopped him doing anything unforgivable, but only just.

“What? No. But we could take them _home_.”

“Robin’s in my care, and Da- Ibn al X--”

“Damian,” Damian said, scoffing. “Since your Arabic accent hasn’t improved at all.”

“Damian is free to do whatever he wants.”

“I am not,” Damian said, kicking at the sidewalk in a childish expression of anger that made Jason grin behind his helmet. “I have to keep your idiotic self in one piece since you’ve so helpfully reminded Grandfather of your existence.”

“I need access to the Pit,” Jason said, figuring why the hell not?

Tim sucked in a sharp breath and Damian shook his head. “There’s no way. Grandfather would never allow it.”

“Robin’s…”

“Dying,” Dick supplied helpfully. “There’s something wrong with my metabolism.”

“Grandfather?” Tim demanded sharply.

Damian ignored him, and Jason followed his lead because there were people around, watching their strange procession with mixed expressions of amusement, fear, and confusion. It wouldn’t do at all to pin Tim to a wall and wreck his face.

“After… well. You know he’s got more safeguards on the known Pits than even I or Mother know about. It simply isn’t possible.”

Jason wanted to stop there, to bury his face in his hands. To demand: “Then what do I do?” but Tim would see, and Dick would worry, and he’d spent every second he’d trained Damian being an adult to a child who didn’t know what a child was.

So he pasted a feral grin across his features, even behind the helmet, and led them to the roof of his building so they could change into civilian clothes.

His apartment felt crowded with four, and Damian was staring at the clothes Dick had found for him with distaste while Tim threw on Jason’s Levis without hesitation, an action that had Jason biting his lip to hold back the anger.

He’d taken Dick’s tablet with them when he’d left, so he used it to find one of the videos of Dick being shrunk and handed it and some headphones over.

“Why is it yellow?” Damian was asking of Dick, and Dick himself was staring at the shirt as if he hadn’t been the one to pick it out that morning.

“I don’t know,” Dick said finally. “I like yellow, I guess?”

“Damian, change,” Jason ordered. He was still a little bloodstained, and Jason didn’t like the way Tim was eying him. It would be best to lump him in with Dick as a child as soon as possible, to keep Tim from becoming suspicious.

“This one’s my bed,” Dick said, dragging Damian over. Damian allowed himself to be moved, and he didn’t so much as glance in Jason’s direction. “We got it this morning. You can share with me, and you can help me protect Jason. He’s my friend.”

“That is an acceptable arrangement,” Damian said. There was the slightest hesitation, then… “If you’re amenable?”

Dick nodded vigorously, then offered Damian a book. “Jason can read to us.”

“I know how to read!” Damian snapped.

“Me too,” Dick said, reasonably enough, “But Jason’s the best reader.” Dick dropped his voice low and private: “He does _voices_.”

Damian glanced up at Jason then, face more vulnerable than he’d seen since the boy had been five or six, and Jason tried to keep his expression blank as he nodded permission.

“That would be acceptable,” Damian said then, and his voice was tight and snotty, the way it only got when he felt like something he wanted would be denied him.

“Neat!” Dick said. “How about you, Robin?”

“I’ll pass. I’ve got to go soon anyway,” he said.

“Watch the video,” Jason said. “Then you can leave.”

Tim straightened his shoulders. “I don’t know what you think you can show me that will make me _not_ go straight to Batman.” Jason scowled. He didn’t care about whatever Tim thought he was doing with Dick, but he couldn’t let Batman know about Damian. That would-- he’d _known_ and he hadn’t _told_ , he’d made a conscious decision not to tell, and Bruce already had enough to never forgive him for.

“Come on, Jason,” Dick said, patting the bed next to himself. “I’m getting _tired_ and I don’t want to waste it.”

“Sure thing, Dickiebird,” Jason said, and he knew the expression on his face was utterly ridiculous, but he didn’t care, suddenly. He didn’t even really care that Tim was in his apartment, because it was obvious that Bruce hadn’t let him in on the situation, and that made him feel a little better.

Tim gasped slightly in reaction to what he was seeing, and Jason allowed himself to relax.

“Which book?” he asked, settling down on Dick’s bed, which, unlike Jason’s, had a frame and a box spring and proper sheets and blankets. Dick handed him a new one, with what looked like a very stylized image of a girl on a white horse on the cover, and Jason shrugged, turned to the first page, and started reading.

After the first page, Damian had settled against his side too, if stiffly, and while he wasn’t exactly on the edge of his seat with excitement, Jason thought, maybe, that he was enjoying the story.

Eventually, Dick dropped off, and Tim was still on the tablet, tapping away and ignoring the three on the bed, and Jason extricated himself.

“Try to get some rest, Damian,” Jason said. “I need you sharp.”

“Is your knee okay?” Tim asked the second Jason switched focus from the boys to him. Jason blinked and resisted the urge to rub the swollen joint.

He shrugged in lieu of an answer, because he wasn’t going to lie about it, but he also wasn’t ready to admit weakness in front of the Replacement.

Tim hummed and poked at the tablet some more. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him,” he muttered, almost to himself. Jason answered anyway.

“You weren’t looking for him. And Damian was kind of distracting.” A child who had a deadly skill in slicing through people with a scimitar was something _Jason_ found distracting.

“I was looking _right at him_ though,” Tim bit out.

“You thought I was crazy. Crazier.”

Tim tapped the screen, then finally, finally looked up at Jason. “Why didn’t anyone call me? Why is he with you?”

“I wish I knew,” Jason said. He glanced over to see Damian’s eyes opened to slits, watching him with a barely perceptible expression of concern. He wanted to snap at him to go to sleep, but he knew it would never work.

“So what’s the plan?”

Jason sighed and rubbed his temples. He wanted to pass out in his bed, but with Tim there, he didn’t dare express that much exhaustion, and he knew he couldn’t, not yet.

“I was hoping to get him healed up by the Pit,” Jason said. “He’s getting worse. He’ll probably be up again in a couple of hours, and he’s not… he eats like he’s got tapeworms and he’s got the energy of a hopped-up kitten, and I just want him to be okay.”

“The Pit wouldn’t re-age him, would it?” Tim asked, and Jason could see it in his eyes, the way he was pulling apart the problem, examining every aspect. “And that was _your_ plan.”

“It was a fucking awful plan,” Jason admitted. “But, it fixed me.”

Mostly.

“Why are you here? I assume there was a fight?”

“No,” Jason said. “Something about paparazzi, and, I don’t know.” He glanced over at Dick and Damian. Damian’s eyes were closed again, but his breathing was too-regular and he hadn’t shifted position yet.

“I’m staying with you, then.”

Jason flinched. “Can you, I don’t know, not?”

Tim gave him a piercing look. “Tell me who the other boy is.”

“Damian.” Jason said flatly.

“I’m staying,” Tim said.

Jason threw up his hands. “It’s not like you haven’t figured it out, damn it. But I’m not going to say it aloud.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Tim asked, and Jason felt eerie, like he’d been split open and poured out for everyone to see. “Is he yours?”

There, the rage was _there_ , and it physically hurt as it burned through him.

“If he were,” Jason said, “Would I say?”

Tim was on the floor now, throat soft under Jason’s hand. He registered, slightly, the slick noise of steel against steel, and then Damian was at his shoulder, naked blade in hand.

Jason forced himself to breathe, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He could taste blood and the slime of the pit, and he could still see its eerie glow.

“This was your plan?” Tim asked, and Jason jerked back abruptly.

“Damian, put that away,” he snapped. 

Damian eyed him, didn’t comply. “He irritates you.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to kill someone,” Jason gritted out, even though it really, really _should_ be.

Damian gave him a look of deepest skepticism, but he sheathed his sword.

“I mean it this time, kid,” Jason added. “Go to sleep.”

Damian scoffed, but he retreated back to the bed. The yellow of his shirt gleamed in the scant light in the room, and Jason thought about what Tim had said, and about Talia, and, with Damian’s back to him now, he allowed his head to drop into his hands.

Tim sat up, and he didn’t say anything at all, but he did touch Jason lightly on the knee. “You should sleep too,” Tim said. “You were limping pretty badly just two days ago.”

Jason didn’t dignify that with a response, but he did leave Tim the bed; taking a blanket and a pillow so he could sleep between the boys and the rest of the room.

Tim woke them early; “I have to be at school,” he said, and he looked at the two now-awake boys on the bed. “If they’re going to be here very long, you’ll want to send them to school too. It’s less suspicious.”

Jason shook his head with disgust; he knew the kind of people at the nearby school, and no way was he sending Damian to the same school as Timothy Drake.

“I’ll make it work. They can be in the same class. What last name are you using? Alvarez, right? Or did you pick up another ID recently?”

“Thought you had to be at school?” Jason asked blearily.

“You need more rest.”

“I _need_ to go out as Nightwing,” he retorted, groaning a little as he sat up. “It’s still dark? Where’s Dick?”

“I took over watch from Damian,” Dick replied, quiet and low from the bed above Jason, who tried to suppress a yawn and failed enough that he choked on it.

“Good for you,” Jason managed.

“School,” Tim said.

“They’ll be kidnapped. Have you looked at them?”

“Something tells me that won’t be a risk. Have _you_ looked at them? Or I can take them to school with me, but those teachers will remember Dick from when he went there.”

Jason tried to raise a skeptical eyebrow, but he was too groggy to give it the sense of superiority it truly deserved, so he thought maybe it fell a little flat.

“I’ve never been to school,” Damian said. “Mother hired the best tutors the world had to offer for me, and Grandfather frequently gave me lessons himself.”

Jason, remembering some of those lessons, remembering _being one of the tutors,_ shivered slightly at the reminder.

“Well,” Tim said. “Then this will be an adventure, right?”

Silence reigned.

Jason rolled over and coughed. It was only supposed to be a good-morning-why-the-hell-are-we-considering-this cough, but it turned into a full-phlegmed chest cough.

Tim had the audacity to rub his shoulders and coax him to “Get it all out, Jason, that’s it.”

Once he could breathe again, he snarled and flipped Tim off of him onto the floor, hard.

“If Damian isn’t going, I’m not sending Dick,” Jason said.

“Dick Grayson can handle himself,” Tim said, and Dick chimed in a protesting affirmative.

“Damian can handle himself and every thug in a three mile radius,” Jason replied.

Damian shifted slightly in the bed, and Jason wondered if he could get away with a hug, or even a hair ruffle, but decided that despite the fact that every person in the room was more or less kin to him, he wouldn’t tolerate it as an appearance of weakness.

“I’m sure he could,” Tim said, and there, that was definitely censure. “How old are you, Damian?”

“Nine,” Damian said calmly. “If we are going to school, I’ll need to retrieve more appropriate attire.”

“Great, I’ll just work out the records and send you guys up to the middle school. And then Jason can sleep, okay?”

Jason shook his head frantically, but Tim ignored him and Damian took Tim’s phrasing as implicit permission and disappeared through the window.

Tim blinked. “Did he just--?”

Jason rubbed his temples. “As far as he’s concerned, that was permission.”

“To… leave? Before dawn? In this part of town?”

Dick stared at the window. “He needs an Alfred to look after him,” he mused. 

“Don’t we all,” Tim said, ruffling Dick’s hair while he tapped at the tablet.


	12. Chapter 12

Damian was fairly certain that the imposter-Robin didn’t actually mean Jason harm, or he wouldn’t have dared to leave Jason alone with him, but he didn’t waste time finding the safe house he’d made for himself when he’d first tracked Jason’s call. It was less than a block away; in retrospect, he likely could have approached Jason immediately upon arriving in Gotham.

However, his instincts when it came to Jason had been dulled by two years of no contact. Mother had forbidden Damian to attempt to locate him, so he’d had to be subtle in his tracking. When Jason had contacted Mother again, however, and she’d thrown her favorite vase against a wall before calmly delivering her orders, Damian had felt the need to act.

Mother had told him, once, that she had given Jason life, and this was why he was as obligated to her as a son; Damian had taken that and gone to him and announced that Jason was his brother. Jason hadn’t argued; but that had been back before Jason did much more than sit and stare in the distance in between bursts of verbalizing memories.

Mother had, but--

Damian had learned from Grandfather that Mother wasn’t always correct, and Jason, well, Jason _was_ his brother. He’d held to that idea more fiercely than any other part of his self-identity. Even more firmly than being the son of the Bat, which Mother perhaps wouldn’t have cared for, had he been young enough still to foolishly reveal the affection he felt towards Jason.

His things were still neatly packed, so he grabbed his bag and made his way back. He determined that it couldn’t have been more than 8 minutes, all told, that he’d been gone.

Jason was dozing, Dick was dressing, and the imposter was fiddling with the tablet Jason had given him last night.

“Do we have the things necessary for school?” Damian asked. “I’ve got my own possessions, here, but I haven’t got books. I don’t care to go on missions without sufficient disguise.”

Tim glanced at him. “Do you have pens and something to write on?”

Damian pulled his pen case and notebook from his pack. Because he was on a mission, he was using cartridges for his pens, not an inkwell. Tim took them both from him, turning first the pen case, then the notebook, over in his hands. “What’s it say?” he asked, fingers tracing out the calligraphy embossed on both.

Damian scoffed. “It is a poem,” he said. “You wouldn’t recognize it.”

“I thought it might be your name,” Tim said, shrugging. “Jason might have something for Dick to use. Did you want to change?”

Damian went to rifle through Jason’s papers, stacked recklessly in a corner, withdrawing a far inferior pad of paper and some pencils, which he added to his pack. Dick wouldn’t have a pack, he thought, and he’d seen the children coming from school yesterday; all of them carried their things in packs.

He rebalanced it so that only his most innocuous weapons and the supplies for the mission were inside, then took his time choosing clothing. Most of the children wore bright colors, so he chose the red shirt, but he didn’t have the same shoes or pants as any of them. He went over to Dick’s stack of things and tried on the jeans there-- constricting and a bit too short in the leg, but they would do. His own shoes would have to suffice, however.

“Will this satisfy any civilians I may encounter?” he asked the imposter, Tim, who considered his outfit carefully.

“Where did you get that shirt?” he asked, an interesting note in his voice. Damian categorized it as amusement after a moment. He looked down curiously; it had the image of a stylized mouse in a pointed hat on it with the word Paris beneath.

“At the airport during my layover,” he said, not disguising the irritation he felt with Tim over the line of questioning. “Jason did not, unfortunately, give me much time to prepare. Would you prefer I wear something else?” He pulled the clothing he’d removed from his pack over. It was only a plain khameez, and sholvar, but Tim’s eyes widened and he shook his head.

“I will not wear yellow,” he added.

“Between the shirt and the accent,” Tim said, sighing, “You’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. But at least I know you can handle yourself if someone decides to pick on you. The uh... the mission parameters are such that you are to avoid casualties at all costs. It’ll bring Jason unwanted attention.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. Tim might be unsubtle about his manipulation, but he was adept at finding the correct notes to strum, regardless.

“They’re children,” Damian scoffed. “I wouldn’t kill _them_.”

“Alright, looks like you’ll be getting on the bus across the way at 0715, and I’d suggest you cross the street no earlier than 0714 if you can help it. Here’s some information about your identities and your classes. Jason’s got an injured knee; he needs to rest up. Try not to wake him, or he’ll try to alter the mission parameters.”

Damian scoffed. “He isn’t actually in charge of me.”

Tim ignored him. “Look after Dick-- I’ve been looking at his symptoms and poking around B’s files on the current case, and it’s not looking promising; not the least because he hasn’t included me on this.”

“You would appear to be not entirely useless,” Damian allowed. “But if it weren’t for you, Jason would not have left Mother and me, and I will not forgive that.”

Tim smiled a little wryly. “Damian, you have no idea, do you?”

Damian shifted backwards, centering himself in preparation for attack. “He is my _brother_ ,” Damian hissed, a public acknowledgement he hadn’t made since he was _seven_ and now twice in as many days. “You _changed him_ and now he is _here_.”

“Damian,” Tim said, as gentle as Mother with a lie, and Damian would _not_ have that.

“If there is one thing you know, it is that Robin is replaceable, and you have, here, two that would suit the role _far better_ than you. It is only because Jason has forbidden your death that you still breathe and dictate mission parameters to me. Do _not_ test this.”

“I don’t think there’s a limit on Robins,” Dick said. “I don’t mind sharing with everyone who wants it. I mean, it’s _supposed_ to be me, but I guess everything changes when I get older. And for right now, I don’t mind.”

Damian looked at Dick, really looked at him, and breathed out a word that should have occurred to him far sooner, a name, a revelation. “Grayson.”

Dick gave him a funny look. “‘Cording to Tim, I’m Thomas Alvarez, and you’re my brother Damian. Though I dunno if anyone’ll buy that. If I had twins, I wouldn’t name them Thomas and Damian, but that’s probably just me. I grew up a little different from normal, you know?”

Dick Grayson, _Nightwing_ , was the reason Jason had made such a reckless move in contacting Mother, and suddenly it all made sense.

“People are senseless over those they love, Damian,” Grandfather told him whenever Mother was being particularly conscious of his father. “Remember this, and be wary of it.”

He’d read every book in the library about love he could find for several weeks, and he’d found that many of them were tragedies, and that many of them echoed the nostalgia of Jason from those early days, that constant stream of memories passing his lips, the mentions of the first Robin.

“Are you Penelope,” Damian asked him, a little boy now who didn’t _know_ , “or are you Clytemnestra?”

Tim was staring at him with something like curiosity on his face, and then he looked at Jason, and his brow furrowed.

Dick looked at Damian, blatantly confused.

Damian shook his head, and Dick shrugged it off. “If we leave now, Kari will give us breakfast,” he said, grinning around at them. “And then we can go to school with the rest of the kids.”

“I’ll walk you over there, then,” Tim said. “Might want to at least _pretend_ at respectability; hopefully no one thinks to call CPS until _after_ we solve Dick’s little problem. I’m sure any person in any position that deals with children will run in terror from Damian, here, so-- you know, you look terribly familiar, Damian.”

“You’ve faced Mother,” Damian said, still clinging to her injunction that he would meet his father when the timing was appropriate, regardless of his other disobedience.

“And Ra’s,” Tim said, wrinkling his nose at the memory. Damian bristled. “Must be family resemblance. Sorry, after this whole thing with Dick, I’m just expecting you to be someone else who regressed in age too.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Well, everyone has all their important bits covered. Grab your gear and let’s go. Jason will sleep better alone, I can almost guarantee it.”

“I’ll set the alarm,” Dick offered. “I know how. He said I broke it, before, but he fixed it and told me how to set it. That’s okay, right?”

Damian waited for Tim to offer the asked-for reassurance, but when it wasn’t forthcoming, he hesitantly gave it himself. “I’m sure that will be acceptable. Jason will be grateful you remembered it, when he awakens.”

Kari had _children._ Di-- no, Thomas, handled the younger children screaming and demanding his attention with grinning enjoyment, and Damian tried to emulate his posture and behavior, but it was difficult in the face of the sticky fingers of her youngest child and a sugary breakfast.

Tim was explaining who they were, and Damian was half-paying attention, to ensure that they were, in fact, sticking with the dossier and identity that Tim had written out for him earlier.

“I like your shirt,” one of the children; a little girl, Damian realized abruptly, said shyly.

“Thank you. Red is my favorite color,” he added awkwardly. “Is yours pink?” he asked, noting the color of her own garment.

She nodded shyly. “Tha’s why Sleeping Beauty is my favorite,” she added, shoving half her hand in her mouth and obscuring the words. He gently extracted the appendage.

“Speak clearly,” he advised. “People will respect you better if you show them confidence.”

Her eyes widened, and he wondered if this were a precursor to crying. Girls cried, frequently, in the literature in Grandfather’s library.

“S-sorry-” she said, and he shook his head.

“I do not care,” he attempted to soothe her, casting a desperate glance around for Tim or Thomas or the child’s mother. “Others will.”

She let out a breath with a gusty noise, and then she latched onto his arm. “You can sit wit me on the bus, ok?” she announced. “Thomas too.”

Damian blinked.

Kari broke in, then, “Cam, sweetheart, you shouldn’t just grab people; I know your mother isn’t here, but…”

Damian looked from Cam to Kari who was not her mother, and back. “That would be acceptable.” Belatedly, he gestured to Dick. “If Thomas agrees,” he added hurriedly. Dick beamed at them.

“That’s _excellent_ ,” Dick said with fervor. Damian realized, after a moment or two, that he was smiling.

“You know,” Kari said, half an hour later, once they were heading off to the bus stop. “It’s kind of disheartening that the Red Hood is never around anymore.”

Another of the parents agreed, and Cam made a little frightened noise and clutched harder at Damian’s arm (which she had yet to release. He held out hope, yet, for their arrival at the school to prompt it.)

“He’s sick,” another man protested. “I saw it on the news. He was throwing up and stuff, and his knee was hurting him.”

Damian didn’t do anything so overt as to look over at the man, but he did make a note of the specific complaints. Jason was ever the one to ignore physical injury; especially when it would do more harm than good to put off seeking aid.

Dick seemed to be of similar mind, leaning in close and murmuring, in low tones that wouldn’t carry, “He’s doing better, but you’ve got to _trick_ him into sleeping. That’s why I demand stories, you know.”

Damian considered that and, after a moment, nodded. It seemed a useful trick to add to his repertoire; at least while he was still physically immature enough to pull it off.

He rather doubted it would work on Mother or Grandfather, though, and he didn’t think he’d have the opportunity to attempt it with his father in the near future. He had one goal in Gotham, and he would leave upon seeing it through

The bus was awful. Dick must have noticed his discomfort, because he was off and chattering like a bird in spring, about everything and nothing all at once. Damian was shocked into silence, though he would like to interject a scathing comment at some point.

Dick talked so continually, in fact, that it took Damian by surprise when he stopped with a question.

“So Jason’s your brother?” he asked.

Damian considered this. “Mother reawakened his mind,” he said. “She was punished for her transgression, but she did not repent of it.”

The girl sitting with them, Cam, gave him a confused look. “You talk weird,” she said. “It’s kinda cool. Like a _prince_.”

Damian felt nothing but perplexity regarding her, so he dismissed her comment.

“He is not my brother by blood,” he settled on.

“That’s still brothers, if you call it brothers,” Dick said. “He’d be an awesome brother. I think he might be mine, but everything’s all…” he waved his hands.

“Chronologically disturbed?” Damian offered.

Dick wrinkled his brow and shrugged. “Is he a good brother?”

“He taught me a great deal,” Damian said diplomatically.

Dick nodded slowly. “But is he a good brother?” he asked again, and his tone was different; less curious, more… sad.

Damian found himself nodding despite himself. “When I imagined having a brother, before Jason came, that wasn’t as good as having Jason was. Mother doesn’t like the attachment, though, so you mustn’t tell her.”

Dick spat on his hand, and this time, Damian knew the correct protocol for responding, and Dick smiled _at_ him and it was… He wouldn’t mind Dick for a brother, either.

He wondered if he could hold that secret from Jason.

Damian had thought, after the bus ride and his conversation with Dick, that school might not be so bad.

He’d been _terribly_ wrong. It hardly mattered though, Jason needed rest, and Jason needed Dick protected. Damian wouldn’t falter in his adopted duties.

The school had books for sharing that were unlike any book Grandfather kept, which would have been interesting, save for how completely defaced they were. He looked around himself at the many, raucous children, but none of them seemed to notice anything wrong, so he pretended he didn’t either.

Dick was flipping through his own book with a small smile on his face.

“I was hoping there’d be stuff from, you know, in-between,” he said when he caught Damian watching. “But there’s not. It’s just ancient history.”

“We can see if there are other books; the children are grouped by age, correct? Perhaps a different age group will have different books.”

“Grades,” Dick said. “They call it grades.” He smiled sunnily, and Damian scoffed. He _wanted_ to snap that it little mattered what they called it, they were still grouped by age, which was a terrible way to educate someone, but then perhaps education wasn’t the goal so much as a means to some unclear end.

School was horrible.

The book wasn’t even _correct_. It was all very frustrating, but he found, unlike when his tutors frustrated him, that a steady stream of corrections under his breath directed at Dick, who snickered when appropriate, were very satisfying.

“I’m sorry,” the teacher said suddenly, just when he’d managed to get Dick to twitch with a suppressed full-body laugh. “Am I interrupting your conversation?”

“No,” Damian gritted out. “You are _supplementing_ it.”

The teacher’s face went blank with surprise, and Damian wanted nothing more than to ensure it remained blank forever. He even knew, by now, which desks he’d have to jump across to get to him.

“Oh, truly? Do enlighten us,” the teacher said, recovering slightly.

“Your description of the burning of Alexandria is _asinine_ ,” Damian said. “It was a result of unsteady religious tensions culminating in rioting zealots. The Romans had _nothing_ to do with it. There are primary documents. Anyone with _sense_ knows this.”

The teacher made a tiny choking noise that Damian was more familiar with, and Damian smiled-- not baring his teeth because he wasn’t cruel-- and thought perhaps that sound was even more satisfying when it _didn’t_ herald a target’s death.

Damian endured three days of the torturesome program before anything happened, and the only high point was Dick teaching him agility drills during their physical education period, and making his history teacher cry at one point.

Then, the entire pointless exercise blew up in everyone’s face, as he’d long expected it would.

Luckily, the Robin who’d stolen his brother’s place was present, or it all might have gone even worse.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For pentapus, for being awesome. (Also, coincidentally, there is a bit of hurt!Dick this chapter. Woo!)

Tim was skipping school. A great deal of _nothing_ had been showing up in his searches about Dick’s condition--and more discreetly, about Damian’s presence--but something, some gut instinct, was nagging him about tonight. He pinpointed it approximately halfway to Jason’s apartment block, and that made him urge the bike faster.

It was the seventh day since Dick’s transformation. Since nothing had happened on day three, and if one assumed magic as a likely cause, then day seven was the next likely day for something strange to happen, or even for a reversal. It meant he needed to prepare Jason (and Damian) for Dick’s possible (if not probable, please let it be probable) re-aging.

It meant he was just slowing to a halt when he saw the Red Hood embroiled, _at the bus stop_ , in a heated fight with what appeared to be twelve or fifteen gang members.

“Really.” Tim said flatly under his breath, and, glad he’d come as Robin, entered the fray.

_Most_ of the fray was Ibn al Xu’ffasch trying to kill everyone in sight and little!Robin trying to stop him. “We don’t kill, Ibn! We have a _truce!_ ” piped through the melee.

Ibn was snarling what may have been invective in a language Tim didn’t know, and the Red Hood was trying to protect his bad knee, and, just as Tim whirled his bo around to knock out a gang member, failing.

“Hood!” he snapped out, and Robin shouted and dove at Hood’s attacker. “Dammit,” Tim said, then he pressed the button on his utility belt to enable his SOS signal and emergency tracker.

More gang members swarmed into range, and he flipped his staff around and managed to take out another, but there were simply too many of them.

Tim didn’t see Hood and Robin get taken, but he knew when they must have finally succumbed to the onslaught, because he and Ibn abruptly had no more opponents.

He hit his knees in an attempt to catch his breath, and looked up to see Ibn, eyes cold and face expressionless, regarding him. “Are you injured,” the boy asked, and Tim _had_ to think of him that way, had to continually remind himself that the person before him was a _child_ (Of Ra’s al Ghul’s line, so perhaps more of a demon, but still--) who needed protection, not to be put away indefinitely to save the world from an as-yet undefined threat.

“Backup’s on it’s way,” he said in lieu of a response.

“Good; you _are_ injured,” the boy said curtly, turning slightly to clean the worst of the blood from his blades and sheathe them. “And I haven’t any bandaging. In this country, it’s customary to call 911 to secure transport to the nearest hospital, correct?”

“Normally, yes,” Tim said, equally matter of fact, examining his limbs for injury; nothing stood out as obvious, and he wasn’t feeling any specific pain, but the boy did come across as experienced in noticing such things. “But we’ll wait for backup to arrive instead.”

“What sort of backup have you called?” he asked. “My brother led me to believe that he was on his own in this city.”

“He may be,” Tim said gently, though he disagreed; if the Red Hood called, either he or Nightwing would come running, no questions asked. It was probably not something the Red Hood had considered though. Tim knew, though, gut deep and without much evidence beyond knowing _him_ , that the reverse were true. If even the merest whisper suggested that Nightwing or Robin needed help, he’d be there, shooting out kneecaps and maybe, depending on the trouble, jugulars.

Say what you would about his methods, the Red Hood _was_ a crack shot.

“But I’m not.”

“Aren’t what, Robin?” a gravelly voice asked from behind him, with little expression of interest in his tone.

Tim felt instantly better, despite how irrational it was. Batman was here, now. Everything would be okay.

Ibn suddenly looked like the child he was supposed to be: his expression was a mixture of awe and excitement, and Tim smiled a little to see that the kid at least still believed in heroes.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Batman,” Ibn said, offering his hand. Then, disregarding the fact that he was surrounded by bloody, crying gang members, he introduced himself. “My name is Damian al Ghul; I’ve come at my brother’s request and would appreciate any assistance you might render in retrieving him. I believe we might start by interrogating _these_.”

Tim was tempted to reach across and cover the boy’s mouth, because there were things you just _did not_ say to Batman.

“Your brother?” Batman mused; it was not a question. He was trying, as Tim had been for days, to figure out how the _hell_ a baby al Ghul had slipped through the cracks in their intel. Tim wondered if it might be better to point out that Damian meant Jason, and decided to table that decision for later.

“Your partner is injured,” Damian intoned arrogantly. “We should see to him and take some of these to interrogate.”

“The police are on their way,” Batman said. “Get in the car.”

Tim took his life into his hands and scooped Damian up in order to ensure his compliance. One didn’t disregard Batman’s orders, and Damian was looking as though he were about to _argue_.

Time enough for that _later_.

They hadn’t been driving more than a single traffic light when Damian’s eyelids flickered and suddenly all the fight went out of him.

“Holy--” Tim muttered, then proceeded to strip him out of his ridiculous tourist t-shirt (the kid adored red; one more tic in the “actually a child” column.) and actually check him out.

“Leave me!” Damian snapped; batting at Tim’s hands. “I don’t _like_ you.”

“Tough, kid,” Tim said, aware that he was channeling Jason Todd-as-Robin just then, and not really caring. “ _I’m_ not injured; you are.”

“They had _knives_ ,” Damian protested. “I fight with a proper blade.”

“Yes you do,” Tim soothed. “But they were bigger than you; longer reach regardless, right?”

“How bad is it,” Batman demanded, and Tim traced the edges of the wound.

“Missed the critical stuff, enough blood loss to be a concern, considering the kid is _nine_.”

“You-- don’t tell Mother,” Damian muttered imperiously, and Tim realized that that was fear driving the tone.

“The only words I have to spare for your mother,” Tim assured, “Are catchy insults and the occasional witty banter.”

“We _should_ find his mother,” Batman said. “The streets of Gotham are too dangerous--”

Damian struggled out of his weakness for that, grabbed at the door handle, and toppled out of the Batmobile. Tim didn’t waste time making decisions; Damian al Ghul was a _child_ , no matter whose child he was, and Tim wouldn’t let him get lost only to bleed out on the _dangerous_ Gotham streets.

Damian was quick and the pain didn’t seem to be slowing him down too much, but he _was_ bleeding, and Tim followed the smears of blood into an alley and then behind a dumpster.

“Hey, Damian,” Tim said, crouching down a bit too far away to touch, not wanting to spook him again. 

Nine years old and already so painfully and completely independent.

Not that Tim knew _anything _about that.__

__The hum of the Batmobile’s engine approached, then cut off, and Tim ignored that for the time being._ _

__“Look, I know he’s kind of-- well. You noticed. But he’s going to be an excellent ally for you if you want to get your brother back.”_ _

__“And Dick,” Damian said. “We have a truce.”_ _

__“Your brother and your ally,” Tim agreed to the correction easily. “I’ll keep him off your back about your mother, which won’t be too hard once it clicks for him who she _is_ , trust me. There’s _history_ ; heck, if you don’t want to go back to her, he could probably help you arrange that. I mean, if you think she might be mad that you got hurt or whatever.”_ _

__“I could recover better in the waters of the Pit,” Damian said. “Grandfather would allow _me_.”_ _

__“I… don’t think Batman will go for _that_. In fact, that’s a sure way to get him to _keep_ from contacting her.”_ _

__“I’m… not afraid of being hurt.”_ _

__“Okay,” Tim said._ _

__“I’m not supposed to meet _him_.” Damian continued, distress written on every feature. “It’s not _time_.”_ _

__“Why not?” Batman asked from over Tim’s shoulder._ _

__“Mother said,” Damian whispered, eyelids flickering again. Blood loss finally getting to him, Tim thought. Batman was at his side, kneeling on the filthy asphalt, in a blink._ _

__“Shh,” Batman soothed, and that right there was the man the Robins all trusted despite themselves. He scooped the bloody, barely-conscious child into his arms and didn’t bother to order Tim to follow him._ _

__With Damian’s head lolling against Batman’s chest and the blood streaking his skin, Tim was pretty sure he was going to have _those_ nightmares again tonight, but then, at least he wouldn’t be worrying about Dick and Jason, so that might be an advantage._ _

__***_ _

__Dick rolled over and hit Jason, whose breath whooshed out abruptly, right into Dick’s hair._ _

__“Ngh,” was Dick’s articulate response, and he forced himself to open his eyes. Jason had gotten taken too? But then he would have gone after Dick, right?_ _

__Except._ _

__“Was I eleven?” Dick asked. It seemed vaguely true, like a dream, or like Jason being alive._ _

__So definitely possible._ _

__“Oh thank God,” Jason said dryly. “You remember.”_ _

__Dick reached to brush his hair back and realized he’d been dressed in something vaguely resembling his Nightwing costume, down to a domino mask. It had none of the enhancements he was used to, and the costume was spandex, not kevlar._ _

__Jason was dressed similarly, only his accents were all red, not blue, including the domino._ _

__“What on earth?” Dick breathed._ _

__“Smile, _Nightwing_ ,” Jason said through a clenched-jaw grin. “You’re on candid camera.”_ _

__Dick rolled over and stared at the blinking red light in the ceiling._ _

__“And it gets better, darling,” Jason said, still in that gritted, falsely cheerful tone._ _

__“I can’t even begin to imagine how.”_ _

__“It’s a battle royale.”_ _

__Dick rolled back over in a hurry._ _

__“Yup,” Jason said, all pretense of amusement gone. “So hurry up and kill me so you can get home.”_ _

__“Uh,” Dick said, suddenly remembering reading in his bed with Jason’s chest providing much needed solidity and reassurance, and also _kissing him_ in the bathroom. “No?”_ _

__“Well I sure as hell ain’t killin’ you,” Jason snapped._ _

__“Thank you?” Dick tried. “But we could probably get out of here without killing each other, you know?”_ _

__“I can’t walk,” Jason said. “They got me in the bad knee again.” Dick winced a little, remembering how swollen it had been._ _

__“Is it broken?”_ _

__“God I hope not,” Jason muttered. “C’mon, get out of here, find help, et cetera.”_ _

__“I’m still woozy,” Dick lied. The drowsiness was waning with every breath, the clouded feeling in his mind being replaced rapidly with the throbbing headache he’d begun to associate with Jason Todd._ _

__Jason growled, so Dick sat up and stared down at him. He looked strange, wearing only the domino and spandex; not at all like the Red Hood._ _

__“You look younger like this,” Dick said, warily. “You _aren’t_ , are you?”_ _

__“God I wish I were,” Jason said._ _

__Dick frowned._ _

__“Where’s the other boy?” he asked finally, not wanting to use names unless it became absolutely necessary._ _

__“Robin showed up at the last second; I think they’re both okay.”_ _

__“Or they could be here, somewhere else,” Dick said, reading between the lines._ _

__“It took me awhile to find you,” Jason added, somewhat reluctantly._ _

__“Thought you couldn’t walk.”_ _

__“I’d rather avoid it,” he corrected._ _

__“Always were the lazy one, weren’t you, little wing?” Dick teased, but knew it for a mistake the second Jason’s expression flickered blank and his wide green eyes blinked shut._ _

__“You’ll make sure B… you’ll make sure he looks after my brother?”_ _

__Dick shook his head fiercely. “ _You’ll_ help him look after your brother.”_ _

__Jason laughed, low and mean. “Oh, Nightwing; still with all that faith.”_ _

__“Get up,” Dick snapped. “We’re getting out of here.” He hauled on Jason’s arm until he was mostly upright and then wedged himself under a shoulder._ _

__They were getting out of there._ _

__***_ _

__“The good news is that they’re broadcasting live,” Tim said. His voice was cold, and Bruce regretted, however much Tim might not believe it, the necessity of not bringing him in sooner. It had been safer, with Jason still volatile, to keep him away with the Titans. “The bad news is I can’t track it. It’s some sort of crazy labyrinth thing, which one might think would be difficult to hide, but. Well, crazy labyrinth thing.”_ _

__Tim’s shrug was telling._ _

__The boy, Damian, now thoroughly sutured and bandaged (and _that_ had presented a great deal of difficulty), was warily eating under Alfred’s watchful eye. Tim and Bruce had both completely finished their trays, but Damian obviously trusted only Tim, and even then, only so far as he _had_ to. Bruce was concerned that Tim might be overly identifying with the child, but that was a matter for the future, as was the more problematic issue of his origin._ _

__He could not truly fathom another al Ghul. The boy had to be Talia’s, though; he favored her features, right down to those wide eyes and the crooked, false smile._ _

__“What do you like to do for fun, Master Damian?” Alfred asked, offering to top up the sweet iced tea Damian had accepted in lieu of milk. (Tim had murmured softly that he might not be able to digest milk properly; most people in the world couldn’t, which Bruce had _known_ , but the fit the child had thrown had been unnecessary.)_ _

__Damian didn’t look up from where he was picking at the edges of his sandwich. “I’m permitted free use of Grandfather’s library,” he said. “And of course I enjoyed my training with Jason, while I was still permitted access to him.”_ _

__“Still permitted access?” Tim asked, sounding genuinely curious and not as sick as Bruce felt at the phrasing. The whole damned thing was _wrong_._ _

__“Yes. Jason found out about your existence and Mother deemed him too dangerous to be allowed near me. I’m very important,” Damian added snottily. Bruce was at a loss; Dick and Jason had never been so…_ _

__“Sorry about that,” Tim said. “I-- if there had been a different option, I would have found it, I can promise you. But Batman needs a Robin.”_ _

__Bruce grunted disagreement._ _

__“Mother agrees,” Damian said. “I will likely have to kill you at some point.”_ _

__Bruce stood abruptly, intent on crossing the room, but Tim responded mildly. “I expect your truce with Dick will be over, then.”_ _

__Damian looked genuinely conflicted._ _

__“I would make a far better Robin. My training--”_ _

__“‘S’not training, Damian,” Tim said, leaning towards Damian with an earnest expression. “It’s about empathy, and about…” he waved a hand to encompass the cave, and Bruce suddenly felt very small._ _

__Damian shook his head vigorously. “No, that can’t be-- Mother says--”_ _

__“What does Jason say?”_ _

__Damian stood up abruptly, but he didn’t upset the tray of food. He was definitely more agile than a normal child. He reminded Bruce, painfully, of each of his three boys, all at once. Dick’s agility and grace, with Jason’s pain and Tim’s analytical mind._ _

__And he was so, so young. Younger even than Dick had been._ _

__“Damian,” Bruce said gently. “No matter what you have been trained to do, no matter what your mother says about me and who I am, the fact remains: you are too young.”_ _

__“I know!” Damian snapped. “I’m not supposed to have met you yet! Mother won’t like this.”_ _

__“Damian,” Tim said. “Come on, you’re going to tear your stitches, and that’s going to make recovery take longer.”_ _

__Damian, whom Bruce had thought was gearing up to throw a fit, settled back down in his chair and adjusted the tray so he could eat a couple of bites of his sandwich._ _

__“I shouldn’t have gotten injured,” he muttered resentfully._ _

__“You took out a bunch of them without killing any of them,” TIm reassured gently. “You did way better than anyone could have asked.”_ _

__“They still took my brother,” Damian snarled._ _

__And that--_ _

__“Jason is your brother?” Bruce demanded. Tim and Damian both cast startled glances his way, and he realized they’d forgotten about him._ _

__“Yes,” Damian said with all the conviction of a child. “Mother said she bore him as much as she bore me, and she brought him life, and she was his mother.”_ _

___Bet Jason loved that,_ Bruce thought wryly._ _

__Tim smiled at Damian. “I bet Jason loved having a kid brother to spoil.”_ _

__“He did spoil me,” Damian intoned with the air of one conferring a great confidence. “He frequently did not tell Grandfather or my other tutors of my mistakes, and twice he claimed them as his own to spare me my just punishment.”_ _

__Bruce flinched back from that, but Tim merely nodded. “Jason’s like that, I think.”_ _

__Damian narrowed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “He isn’t _your_ brother.”_ _

__“He is,” Tim said. He smiled a little crookedly, and very carefully didn’t look at either Bruce or Alfred when he said “We share a father, you know.”_ _

__Damian whirled and stared at Bruce, then carefully turned back to Tim._ _

__“Then you are my brother as well,” he said carefully. “I shall have to consider this. It seems unlikely.”_ _

__Tim shrugged. “Take your time. The offer’s open whenever.”_ _

__Damian nodded and shredded the remains of his sandwich quietly while they watched Jason struggling to navigate the labyrinth he’d been dropped into._ _

__It was hard for Bruce to stomach, but that determination was _all_ Jason, and he couldn’t ignore him, not really._ _


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is dedicated to avid reviewer, thoughtful fic-reccer and AMAZING ARTIST [Pentapoda.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapoda) She made a perfect fanart for this darned thing, and I was having a crappy week, so it was triply appreciated. You guys should go take a look at it [here](http://pentapoda.tumblr.com/post/141986642038/some-fanart-for-the-fic-that-got-me-into-batfamily)
> 
> ((For those of you wondering, yes. You totally got a new chapter just so I could link that art. It's really good art. You should check out her other stuff on her tumblr and her Etsy shop. She's fantastic.))

“You know what I really want right now?”

Jason grunted, and Dick took it to mean he should go on. “I mean, I was in _school_ this morning, and the Red Hood was taking care of everything like a man, and not, you know, bitching about it. I want _that_.”

“Fuck you, Nightwing.”

Dick laughed, and Jason tried to shove him off. “Good luck with that,” he said, and he’d meant it to be about the attempt to shove him away, not the fucking, but it echoed in the corridor they were in, awkward and unsubtle.

“My kingdom for some chalk,” Dick said, once the awkwardness had faded some, as they turned another corner.

“My kingdom for a damned crutch. What is with this shit anyway? Why us? There are _other vigilantes_ in Gotham, you know?”

“Yes, but we’re the most photogenic, obviously. Almost as many hits on youtube as children being tortured and murdered, right?”

“It’s a fucking stupid play. Where’s the win?”

“Either we both die, or they get the pleasure of watching one of us murder the other on camera, and then the one who did the murdering slowly starves to death, also on camera?”

Jason shut up at that.

“You don’t know that,” he said angrily after too long remaining silent. “They might fulfill their promise.”

“So go ahead and kill me then; find out!” Dick snapped.

Jason gasped and pulled away. “I wouldn’t!”

“You tried to kill _Robin!_ ”

“That was _ages_ ago. We’ve figured it out!” Jason hissed angrily.

“Yeah, you figured it out all right; like, an hour ago.”

“Yeah? If you think I’m so awful, then you kill me!” Jason snapped, jerking away and whirling on him.

“Oh, yeah, that’s going to happen. We’re being filmed live, so okay, Nightwing’s going to go ahead and _murder_ his only ally, who, by the way, is so injured he can barely walk. Leaving aside that all of Gotham and half the civilized world is probably sitting on the edge of their seats for this _farce_ , do you truly believe that I could do that to _him_?”

Jason whirled on him. “Don’t you fucking _talk_ about that! You think I don’t know that everything would have been better if I’d _stayed_ dead? I hate that! I know and I hate it, and you should just--”

Dick took the first swing. He wondered, even as he was following it up and ducking Jason’s retaliatory blow, whether he’d watch this later and regret that.

He was pretty sure he wouldn’t.

Jason’s attack was pretty solid, given his state, and while Dick really, really didn’t want to hurt him, he found himself aiming a quick kick at the injured knee and wincing at the garbled noise of pain Jason made as he hit the floor. Dick followed him down, getting a knee on his stomach, only for Jason to grapple back, getting his arm in between them and shoving in an attempt to bring his good leg up for a sweep.

Dick pinned his arms next, and leaned down low, out of breath. Jason’s eyes had a sort of resigned fear to them, and Dick thought: _he_ expects _me to kill him,_ and that fucking hurt.

He dropped his forehead to Jason’s shoulder and let out a breath that was so close to a sob that he was pretty sure even he couldn’t tell the difference.

“Fine,” he murmured into Jason’s spandex before pulling back. “Fine! Forget B. Forget all of the shit he went through without you, and all the shit you put him through when you came back. You -- you really think I could do that to _myself_? You’re… you’re my _little wing_ and I treated you like you were a brat because I was young and an only child, but you’re _mine_ as much as you are his and I’m not going to kill you, dammit. So stop asking me to, because you’re _breaking my heart_.”

Funny, how that renewed the fight, and Dick didn’t know what to do, so he let Jason pull the sweep, let him grapple until he was well and truly pinned, and he just looked into eyes made startlingly clear with only a costume shop domino, and he smiled at Jason.

“God damn you, Nightwing,” Jason snarled, and then he bit Dick’s lip, hard and cruel, and Dick pressed up into it, mewling and scrabbling for leverage against the stony floor of the labyrinth.

When Jason pulled back, Dick laughed and darted up for a better kiss, and it tasted like blood, but wasn’t that just so? And Jason made a soft, happy noise, and, well, now there wasn’t any more talk of killing each other.

“Jaybird,” Dick murmured against Jason’s lips. “Because it matches.”

Jason just jerked his hips against Dick’s and growled a little.

“If you think I’m putting out while we’re being recorded live, well--”

Jason stopped abruptly, and Dick heard the footsteps too.

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about Jason forcing himself to his feet and taking up a defensive posture between Dick and the newcomers, but the next bit--

“Hello, Nightwing, Hood,”

\-- was just witty banter, and that he knew how to handle.

***

Jason woke up already standing and cold and hurting, which wasn’t really that unusual, except that he had no idea where the hell he was or who the two men with him were, which was just uncool in the worst ways.

“Who the hell are you?!” he demanded, rounding on the guy with the weird gun-shaped thing and sort of stepping between him and the other man who was coughing harshly and had _no_ weapons. “Where are we? What the hell is going on!”

The one with the gun-thing shook his head angrily. “It should have worked for both of you!” he snapped. “Well, one is good enough. Come here, Red Hood, lets go play.”

“I don’t think you got the kinda money that’s gonna cost you, perv,” Jason shouted, taking a step away and inadvertently closer to the other man. Jason eyed him a little, using mostly peripheral vision. Some sort of masked, costumed guy, probably vigilante and not, you know, criminal, because of the cool wings across his chest, but definitely not Batman.

He wouldn’t acknowledge it, but the fact that it _wasn’t_ Batman, who everyone knew was totally safe and wouldn’t kill you, scared him.

On the other hand, the not-costumed guy had already shown his hand pretty thoroughly, and he had about half a second to decide.

“Fine,” he said, taking a step toward the guy with the gun-thing. “I’ll come with you. But I charge heavy if you want me to get in a car, and I charge _up front_ , got it?”

The guy smiled, and the costume guy said “Wait! Jay!” and Jason didn’t hesitate, though he did file that tidbit about his name away for review later, and once Jason was close enough, he kicked out and up with the kind of force that bruiser had shown him, and then he turned, grabbed Costume’s wrist, and ran like hell.

Once Jason was completely winded, and also completely lost, he stopped and doubled over, panting for breath.

“Wow, Rob; did you really just kick that guy in the balls and run away?”

“Works on all the creeps,” Jason said. “And don’t pretend like you don’t know my name. I heard you earlier.”

“We’re on film,” Costume said, pointing up at a steady red light in the ceiling. “Didn’t figure you wanted the whole world to know your identity just yet.”

“Fair enough,” Jason allowed. “But I got some questions.”

“Ask away, little wing,” Costume said, gesturing grandly. Jason started rolling up his sleeves; this whole outfit was ridiculous. It was also, he noticed, now that he had time to notice, terribly matchy-matchy with Costume’s. And like a thousand sizes too big.

“Who’s Rob? How did I get here? And why, in the name of all the things that go bump in the night, are we wearing _spandex_?”

“You don’t… remember? How-- how old are you?”

“Eleven,” Jason replied promptly.

Dick nodded. “So it hasn’t happened yet. Well, doesn’t matter, doesn’t change anything. Um, as for the rest of it; we were fighting together and got captured and then they changed you from an adult into an eleven-year-old child.”

“That seems highly unlikely and overwhelmingly complicated,” Jason said, sitting down to roll up the pants. He’d left the boots behind ages ago, but the length was just not cutting it. “But then, this is Gotham. I don’t figure you got a knife on you?”

“If only,” Costume mused.

“So, what do I call _you_?”

“Normally? All sorts of horrible names. But for right now, you can call me Nightwing.”

Jason gaped at him.

“So, do you like, know Batman and stuff?” he asked, trying for casual.

“Yeah,” Nightwing replied.

“What’s that like?”

“Honestly? Pretty awful. Wouldn’t trade him for anyone, but he’s… difficult.”

“Well yeah,” Jason said. “Thus _Robin_.”

“Thus, Robin,” Nightwing agreed. Well, Jason _had_ pegged him as pretty smart. A bit too adult to _trust_ , and a little too Costumed to be properly sane (everyone knows you shut up and keep your head down if you want to stay safe,) but smart, yeah.

“I’m gonna wager adult-me got himself in a huge mess and probably we shouldn’t use my name for _his_ sake?”

Nightwing nodded. His eyes were incredibly blue. It was weird and intense and he couldn’t help but feel all sorts of deja vu from them. Jason ignored that and sighed heavily. “Sounds like me. Oh well; you can call me whatever you want then. Rob or, or-- little wing?” his voice got quiet at that, despite how he hadn’t really meant it too.

No one had called him pet names since his mom, and that had sounded awfully like a pet name. It made him feel funny and wobbly. He dropped it over onto the list of things he wasn’t worrying about and opened his mouth to fill up the silence some more, but--

“Little wing it is, then,” Nightwing said, smiling brightly in a way that lit his whole face. It wasn’t a very adult smile. Jason decided to trust him, on a probationary basis.

“I’ve decided to trust you on a probationary basis,” he reported aloud. “Don’t let it get to your head or I’ll kick you _too_.”

“I don’t doubt it for a second, little wing.”

“So you said they were filming us, right?”

Nightwing nodded, smiling still, then pointed to a gleaming red tell-tale in the corner of the little alcove they’d stopped in.

“So that means that perv could find us here? We gotta keep moving. And we can’t make a plan coz they’ll hear it, right?”

“You’re ready to move again?”

“I’m like a shark,” Jason said, snarling his meanest shark-smile. “If I stop moving I die.”

Nightwing didn’t laugh, he just nodded seriously. “I’ll believe that, little wing. So, come on, let’s walk and not plan.”

“React,” Jason mused. “But that gives him an advantage. Whatever, there isn’t anything else _to_ do. Do you know where we are?”

“Underground? Some sort of catacombs?”

“In Gotham?” Jason asked, snorting, “And no crackwhores in sight?”

“Maybe they cleared everyone out,” Nightwing said.

“No way,” Jason said. “No blood or corpses or assorted homemade shivs. Definitely something else. Private property, just outside city limits maybe? Like where all those rich motherfuckers build their fortresses and pretend that Gotham ain’t a slime-bucket not worth saving?”

“You may be on to something. And hey, if this place wasn’t purpose built, maybe there’s a way out.”

“Never said anything about not being purpose built. I mean, rich guys have really weird kinks, okay?”

Nightwing stopped him then to wrap his arms around him, and Jason panicked. He dropped to the ground and scrambled behind him and was two turns back the way he’d come before he even thought about the fact that even if Nightwing was as much a creep as the other guy, he’d _picked_ Nightwing, so he was stuck with that.

“Sorry,” he announced as he strode back around the corner to where Nightwing was waiting for him, eyes narrow behind his domino. “Forgot you were a good guy, there. Maybe _don’t_ grab for me like I’m a baby who got separated from his mommy at the grocery store?”

“When we get out of here,” Nightwing began, then he shook his head. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

“Fine by me. Lets keep moving.” He punctuated his statement with a sharp kick to the wall. He had a plan now anyway.

As they wandered through the labyrinth, Jason interrogated Nightwing, kicking constantly at the floor and the bases of the walls.

“So how do you and I meet, like, for real?”

“I got angry at you for stealing my look,” Nightwing answered equably. “In my defense, I was like, nineteen.”

“I steal your look?” Jason demanded, making sure to rake Nightwing with a completely disdainful once-over.

Nightwing just laughed.

“So what do these assholes want with you and me?”

“Dunno. Probably just attention. And violence. They all seem to want violence.”

“I’ll give ‘em more violence than they can handle,” Jason said, growling slightly.

Nightwing let a hand drop to Jason’s shoulder, but only for a second. Jason froze for a lot longer than a second, then trotted to catch up. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re this much of a gropey asshole on purpose, or if I’m just _that_ exciting.”

“In my defense, normally you’re a decade older than you are right now. Also, usually you’re the gropey one.”

Jason shoved his hair out of his eyes, and didn’t say aloud that that definitely did make him feel better.

“Why don’t you go to the cops?” Nightwing asked, apropos of nothing.

“For what?”

“Seems like it must be a continual problem, older guys… touching you. You could tell someone.”

“I dunno what Gotham you grew up in, Nightwing, but the cops are the _worst_ for that shit. Either they want to get me sent to the orphanage, or they tell me they’ll keep mum if I just give ‘em a freebie.”

“But you’re eleven,” Nightwing protested, but it was half-hearted at best. Jason shrugged.

“They do it with every other criminal; not gonna change their stripes coz I’m a kid, you know that.”

Nightwing dropped a hand on his shoulder again, but he didn’t draw it off. “Yeah, I guess I should have figured, but… anyway, I’ll stop with the touching in a second, I just…”

“Hey, you’re not half bad,” Jason said. “When we get out of here, maybe I’ll let you take me to a diner or something.”

Nightwing grinned (Jason looked up just to check, to see if it was that little kid grin or something… else… that had spread across his face.)

“How about I take you to Batman’s secret lair instead?”

“I dunno ‘bout that,” Jason said. “I betcha Batman won’t like a kid like me fucking up his crime-fighting stuff. Plus, _I’m_ technically a criminal, you know?”

Nightwing froze. “What makes you say that?” he demanded.

“Stealing is illegal. So’s the other shit I do to get fed. But without parents, you know?”

“I don’t think Batman cares about petty theft in the name of _survival_. And if he _does_ , I’ll hold him off while you run away. Promise.”

***

“Ouch!” Damian exclaimed, caught by surprise and reacting poorly from it. He launched himself out of the chair, but the old man was already out of reach with Drake and Bruce between them.

“You will keep your hands off my person,” Damian snarled, but he watched with unrevealed trepidation as Alfred offered the DNA sample he’d just taken to the computer. “How long will your DNA analysis take?” he demanded.

In his home, it would be a matter of a day or so, and he was hoping here it would take longer.

“24 hours, Master Damian,” Alfred said, favoring Damian with what appeared to be a knowing look. Damian scoffed. The old man knew _nothing_.

Then, Jason was screaming and Damian knew the sound a man made when dying.

“You have to save him!” he snarled, whirling on Batman. “You can’t leave him down there!”

“Damian, look,” Tim said, pointing to the screen. Damian reluctantly turned to see, and Jason was…

As Grayson had been. “He’s all right?” Damian asked, looking at the smaller, more vulnerable figure his brother now cut.

“Assuming they used the same method of de-aging him, yes; He’ll have an uncomfortable week, and be fine,” Tim reassured. He didn’t do him the insult of offering comfort as one might a child, which Damian had feared.

Bruce, on the other hand, closed the distance between them and laid a hand against his shoulder. Damian was torn. He _ought_ to shrug it off and lurch away, but he wanted, as he always had with Jason, to lean into it, to accept the comfort offered.

He was an al Ghul. He _needed_ no comfort.

He swept the hand off of his shoulder with a single, violent motion, and he moved so he was no longer within touching distance of Bruce. “Do not put your hands on _me_ ,” he snarled, and was placated only slightly by the sharp nod Bruce offered him.

He could just see, out of the corner of his eye, Alfred shaking his head slightly. Was that sadness?

He’d been too long among children, to be reading so much into simple expressions he’d been trained since he’d been decanted to recognize and assess.

The boy on screen was appropriately wary, surrounded by what must seem to him to be enemies.

He lacked skill or finesse however, and Damian furrowed his brow in confusion.

“I don’t understand,” he murmured. “He could easily have killed that man. He wasn’t expecting resistance.”

“Obviously,” Bruce replied dryly.

“I remember that,” Alfred said, sounding fond. “He also bit. Bites.”

“God, yes,” Bruce agreed fervently.

“He’s…” Tim said, then he trailed off. “He thinks the worst. Of everyone. See?”

“He trusts Grayson,” Damian said, feeling something twinge in his chest. He ignored it. “That certainly doesn’t change.”

Three sets of eyes focused intently on him at that proclamation. Damian, as any assassin might be, was uncomfortable with the heavy scrutiny.

“I only meant,” he murmured sullenly, “Since he’s been enamored of Grayson since I’ve known him.”

Tim laughed, sharp and loud in the echoing cave. It covered up Jason’s voice, but Grayson’s “Little wing it is, then,” said with soft reassurance echoed loudly through the room. Damian sucked in a breath, but he forced it back out, quickly enough that his chest didn’t twinge again. That was becoming irritating.

“You people have the strangest ideas of endearments,” Damian said, sniffing haughtily.

“If you insist, Master Damian,” Alfred said. Damian scowled at him, unsure if he was being mocked but strongly suspecting it to be so.

“I’m making some progress with the source of the videos, but there’s no way of knowing whether they’re being recorded off-site and transported physically to the location. Either way, I think we should suit up.”

Bruce grunted acknowledgment, and Damian grabbed his swords from where he had set them. It hurt to bend properly to get the scabbards strapped across his back, but when he stood up, there was no indication, he knew, in his posture or expression, of the pain.

He was no child, to reveal such weakness.

“You’re staying here,” Tim said.

“It isn’t your decision,” Damian snapped.

There was the sound of running and panting on the screens, and Bruce commented, blandly, “He’s frightened Jason off.”

“It was bound to happen,” Alfred said with a soft sigh. “You yourself had to employ restraints before you could convince him of your trustworthiness.”

Damian resisted the urge to stomp his feet when they were no longer paying him any heed. It was a good thing, he told himself, and he darted towards the vehicles. He could conceal himself and accompany them whether they wanted him or not.

Jason was his responsibility, and these, even as accustomed as they were to fighting crime, had no idea what sort of target the adult Jason Todd had made of himself to the League.

He held too many of their secrets, and now Talia had been reminded of all he’d taken from her when he’d left.

Damian shut his eyes against that thought; his mother loved both of them. She told him so often.

Jason was simply very difficult to love.


	15. Chapter 15

Jason was actually quite surprised when the next kick broke through the wall.

“Nightwing!” he snapped, then kicked again. Again, and it was big enough for him. He didn’t waste time trying to make sure that Nightwing was following him; he simply dove through the opening and scrambled through the low, filthy tunnel he found himself in.

_”Please,” _he whispered mentally. _”Please let this not be a dead end.”___

__Something touched his bare foot and he recoiled. “Robin, it’s me!” Nightwing said in a low voice._ _

__Jason didn’t apologize, but he was starting to wonder when Nightwing would give up on him too. It was probably going to be his shortest lived friendship yet, if he didn’t quit freaking out on him; and Jason had only just decided that he might entertain the notion of considering Nightwing a friend._ _

__Jason continued on, and there was a slight incline to the dirt flooring._ _

__“I think this might actually work,” he muttered, and Nightwing’s hand closed around his ankle, squeezing reassuringly._ _

__Jason allowed himself to be reassured._ _

__When they finally got to a drainage grate that led, apparently, to the outside, Jason had to suppress his triumphant shout._ _

__Nightwing didn’t, and Jason grinned the whole time they worked together to open up the grate._ _

__Once they were free, Nightwing stared around them. “I… have no idea where we are,” he said._ _

__Jason pointed at the brightest edge of the light pollution, somewhat to their left. “Gotham’s that way. We should get started.”_ _

__It was going to be a long walk, especially barefoot, but at least this first part would be on the grass._ _

__Wonderful, soft, grass. If they weren’t in mortal peril, he might even revel in the luxury of it._ _

__“I’ve never seen this much _grass_ before,” Jason said in a confidential whisper. “Wonder how much it costs for them to keep it?”_ _

__“Not as much as you’d think. We should find a road; maybe someone’ll stop.”_ _

__“Sure; you let me do the talking though, okay? You’ll probably be all earnest and trusting and…”_ _

__A dark vehicle roared across the lawn, and Jason’s first thought was that lovely, costly grass._ _

__“Asshole,” he muttered. Nightwing broke into a run, waving and yelling like they _weren’t_ trying to escape a sadistic bastard’s idea of a carnival funhouse._ _

__“Shut up!” Jason called, to no avail, and when Nightwing didn’t slow down, Jason gave chase._ _

__“Stop!” he called when the vehicle purred to a stop, but then the doors opened and two very familiar figures emerged._ _

__“Oh,” he whispered, slowing his run so he could watch them. Robin looked funny, and after a moment Jason realized it was his pants. Batman was subtly different too, and they had both patted Nightwing to make sure he was okay._ _

__Nightwing belonged to _them_ , Jason realized. He’d only been nice to Jason because his real family wasn’t around. Jason was pretty familiar with that, so he allowed the jealousy and resentment to burn in his gut for a moment, but then, like with every foster family he’d thought he might be able to make a go of, he turned his back on them and started towards the woods. They were dark and close and beckoning, and he thought maybe they’d be easier to stand than all this open grass, and then a body hit him solidly from the side, and he was pinned, staring up into an unmasked boy’s face._ _

__“Jason, you _must_ remain with Batman if you want to live,” the boy said, low and perfectly calm._ _

__He had swords strapped to his back, hilts peeking over his shoulders, and there was a line of blood spreading along his torso._ _

__“You’re hurt,” Jason said._ _

__“You’re in danger,” the boy countered, and Jason stared up at him._ _

__“Well, duh,” Jason said. “I did just escape from being kidnapped.”_ _

__“Hey!” Nightwing called, and Jason could feel the slightest vibrations through the sod as he jogged towards them. It was an odd sensation. “Damian?”_ _

__“Grayson,” the boy, Damian, said, inclining his head._ _

__“Are you bleeding? Why are you bleeding!? What happened.”_ _

__“Jason was attempting to make his own way. I’ve stopped him for now, but we may need a better strategy for the future.”_ _

__“Jason, remember what I said about Batman?”_ _

__Jason nodded._ _

__“I meant it. Come on, now. Let’s go home.”_ _

__***_ _

__Dick wasn’t sure who he was more concerned about; the sullen, closed-off enigma Damian had become now that Dick was an adult again, or the fierce, broken child who would one day become Robin._ _

__Both were causing him a great deal of trouble, and Bruce wasn’t helping any; apparently Damian had stowed away in the Batmobile and now Batman felt the need to deliver a dressing down that would drive anyone to tears._ _

__Dick remembered how these lectures had made him feel, and Damian was simply listening, with bowed head, to the heaping criticism._ _

__Tim, ever observant, was flicking his attention constantly between Damian, Jason, and Dick, and Dick wanted to touch his shoulder, but Jason was watching, and he didn’t want the boy to get the wrong idea. _Again__ _

__“B,” Dick said. “He’s _nine._ Remember nine?”_ _

__Bruce opened his mouth to argue, but on Tim’s look combined with Dick's, wisely shut it again. Dick rubbed his temples._ _

__“You’re only _nine_?” Jason demanded. “You’re bigger than I am!”_ _

__“I was not malnourished as a child,” Damian replied steadily. “It only makes sense that I should outmass you at our current ages. I expect, once we are both fully matured, that I shall again outmass you, but it remains to be seen.”_ _

__“Huh,” Jason said. “Who are all you people? Are you de-aged too?”_ _

__“They are the Bat-people of Gotham,” Damian replied. “I am Damian. I am your brother.”_ _

__Dick could feel the swift math Jason was doing, trying to parse that, then, “No you aren’t. My parents weren’t alive anymore when you were born. Who are you really?”_ _

__“His mother adopted you,” Dick interjected before it could turn ugly. “Come on; there’s no way they haven’t noticed our escape, we’ve got to get in the car, Robin.”_ _

__Damian got to his feet in a quick movement, one that Dick thought he might have used himself. It shouldn’t have been disconcerting to see a child so fit and lithe, not after the life he’d lived, but it somehow was. Next to Jason’s surliness and solid, belligerent stance, Damian’s sheer skill and physical self-assuredness was startling._ _

__As if on cue, the grounds were abruptly floodlit, and Damian offered a hand to Jason, who ignored it, jumping to his feet and racing for the Batmobile._ _

__“This is the coolest car ever,” he said, and Dick reached across the boy to strap him in. Damian climbed across Dick’s body, settled himself in right next to Jason, and jerked the straps around them both._ _

__“Hey!” Jason protested, but Damian shoved a rather effective elbow directly into his gut, and Jason coughed viciously._ _

__“Quiet,” Batman snapped, and the Batmobile was already moving, turf flying from under its wheels._ _

__“Sorry, Nightwing,” Tim said from his spot in the front, craning around to give him an apologetic little frown. “I should have taken the back seat._ _

__“Back seat’s for those who aren’t in fighting form,” Nightwing said, rote repetition._ _

__Tim nodded slowly. “You hurt?”_ _

__“I’ve still got some nasty bruising from before I got shrunk; looks like the week I spent as an eleven-year old doesn’t count for healing…” he trailed off and they all very significantly did not look at Jason. “And the soles of my feet are killing me.”_ _

__“Huh,” Tim said. “That’s _fascinating_.”_ _

__Dick raised an eyebrow. “Also, I am wearing spandex.”_ _

__The car was silent for several moments, but then Tim burst into peals of laughter, and Dick couldn’t help but grin and shake his head._ _

__“Is our mom very nice?” Jason asked. From any other boy, it would have been a quiet inquiry, tentative and nervous. Dick didn’t doubt for a second that Jason was nervous as hell asking that, but he wasn’t _quiet_. He _demanded_ the information, braced as if for another blow._ _

__Damian considered that. “No,” he said after a moment. “But she loves us each for our strengths and helps us repair our weaknesses, or conceal them if we cannot. She is a good mother, but she is not kind.”_ _

__Jason nodded. “That’s… that’s okay, I guess. That’s fine. Where is she? Are we going to see her?”_ _

__“No,” Batman said from the front seat. “She is dangerous.”_ _

__“She’s your enemy,” Jason interpreted. “Are we your hostages then?”_ _

__“I doubt,” Tim interrupted before Batman could destroy the fragile peace further, “That anyone could keep Damian hostage if he didn’t want to be kept.”_ _

__“It’s true,” Damian mused. “I did escape Mother’s house without difficulty.”_ _

__“So we’re runaways,” Jason said, frowning and nodding. Damian had turned so he could see Jason’s face, which meant Dick couldn’t even try to read him._ _

__“In a way, yes,” Damian offered. “But we are also at home, here. Where my mother is your mother, Batman is your father.”_ _

__Dick sucked in a sharp breath, but he let it out without saying anything. It was impossible-- but now that he’d had the thought, he could see the resemblance._ _

__He’d have to talk to Alfred when they got home._ _

__Damian fell asleep on the ride, and Jason’s arm went around his shoulders, pulling him close and sending Dick a vicious glare-- as if Dick would say anything._ _

__When they pulled back into the Batcave, Alfred was waiting for them._ _

__“He tore his stitches,” Tim said, and Alfred frowned. Dick caught his eye, slowly raising an eyebrow, and Alfred nodded, equally slowly. They’d talk as soon as the rest of them were taken care of._ _

__“I would pay actual money for a shower and my bed,” Dick said. “Hi, Tim; how was your vacation?”_ _

__“Exciting,” Tim replied. “You want to borrow some clothes?”_ _

__“Nah, I have some stuff here; I was staying here right before I changed.”_ _

__Tim nodded. “I’m going to grab a computer and go work through some of this data. Good night,” he said._ _

__“You could let Oracle--” Tim was already wandering off, waving a dismissive hand behind his head at the suggestion. Dick shrugged. Batman had lifted Damian out of the car with a gentleness that Dick had missed seeing from him._ _

__“Stitches?” he asked._ _

__“Young Master Damian had a run-in with one of your abductors’ knives,” Alfred said. Dick’s eyes widened in surprise._ _

__“Adopting him already, Alfie?” Dick asked._ _

__Alfred smiled at him and said “I have no idea what you mean, sir.”_ _

__Dick snorted, but he stood watch while Batman carefully stripped the unconscious boy and Alfred started working on the bandages._ _

__Jason sidled over near him and, after a moment, said, “Looking at him makes me sad, and I don’t know why.”_ _

__Dick resisted the urge to drop a hand to his shoulder. “Maybe it’s a holdover from when you were an adult?”_ _

__“Did you have feelings like that, when you had to be a kid again?”_ _

__“Not really,” Dick said, “But I met Batman before I was eleven, so I might not have noticed.”_ _

__“I think you would have,” Jason said, quiet and small. “It’s like-- if I shut my eyes, it’s like I’m drowning.”_ _

__Dick slowly, carefully, placed his hand on Jason’s shoulder as they watched Alfred retie Damian’s stitches._ _

__“it’s only for a week,” Dick promised. “It’ll be over in a week.”_ _

__“And what about the people who did this to us?”_ _

__Dick shut his eyes against that thought. “We’ll find them. We’ll make sure they go to jail.”_ _

__Jason stared down at the floor and Dick followed his gaze, settling on the boy’s grimy, bare toes. “We should go upstairs; get you cleaned up.”_ _

__“You too, Nightwing,” Jason said._ _

__“Dick,” he corrected, then, thinking about it, he introduced himself properly: “Richard Grayson.”_ _

__Jason’s eyes widened, and he glanced over at Batman._ _

__“Oh,” he whispered, and he sounded strangely disappointed._ _

__“Come on, Jaybird,” Dick said, making a decision. Damian would be fine, but Jason was at knife’s edge. “Let me show you your room.”_ _


End file.
